---
title: The mother sat down on the staircase beside her daughter and said, ‘… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The mother sat down on the staircase beside her daughter and said, ‘I will think about it with you, my dear.’ Who acts: mother, I. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Sillies, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Six Sillies, sentence 7

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The mother sat down on the staircase beside her daughter and said, ‘I will think about it with you, my dear.’

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**Who acts:** mother, I · **What happens:** sit down, say, think · **To what, where:** staircase · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Sillies. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother, I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg540:28:7
# text = The mother sat down on the staircase beside her daughter and said, ‘I will think about it with you, my dear.’
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	down	down	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	staircase	staircase	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
8	beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
18	about	about	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	_
20	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit down** | past | the mother |  |  | the staircase |  | beside mother's daughter | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on staircase=Location |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the mother *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | future | I |  |  |  |  | about staircase; with you | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent about it=Topic |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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