---
title: Whenever she heard the Witch’s voice she unloosed her plaits, and le… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Whenever she heard the Witch’s voice she unloosed her plaits, and let her hair fall down out of the window about twenty yards below, and the old Witch climbed up by it. Who acts: witch, hair, old Witch. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers, with its dependency tree 
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Brothers, sentence 121

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Whenever she heard the Witch’s voice she unloosed her plaits, and let her hair fall down out of the window about twenty yards below, and the old Witch climbed up by it.

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**Who acts:** witch, hair, old Witch · **What happens:** hear, unloose, let, fall down, climb up · **To what, where:** voice, plaits, hair, window

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

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg540:41:121
# text = Whenever she heard the Witch’s voice she unloosed her plaits, and let her hair fall down out of the window about twenty yards below, and the old Witch climbed up by it.
1	Whenever	whenever	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	3	advmod	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	Witch	Witch	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’s	's	PART	POS	_	5	case	_	_
7	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	unloosed	unloose	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	plaits	plait	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
15	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
18	down	down	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	_
19	out	out	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	window	window	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
23	about	about	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	25	nummod	_	_
25	yards	yard	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obl:unmarked	_	_
26	below	below	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
30	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	amod	_	_
31	Witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nsubj	_	_
32	climbed	climb	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
33	up	up	ADP	RP	_	32	compound:prt	_	_
34	by	by	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
35	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	32	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | witch | the Witch's voice |  |  |  | whenever *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer voice=Stimulus |
| 2 | **unloose** | past | witch | witch's plaits |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **let** | infinitive | witch *not said here* | witch's hair |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **fall down** | infinitive | witch's hair *not said here* |  |  | the window |  | below *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme out window=Location |
| 5 | **climb up** | past | the old Witch |  |  |  |  | by hair | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by it=Trajectory |

<!-- .note -->
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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