---
title: The girl, wishing to please her brothers, plucked the twelve flowers… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The girl, wishing to please her brothers, plucked the twelve flowers, meaning to present one to each of them as they sat at supper. Who acts: girl, brothers. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/41/67/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Twelve Brothers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/41/) / 67

# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Brothers, sentence 67

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The girl, wishing to please her brothers, plucked the twelve flowers, meaning to present one to each of them as they sat at supper.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** girl, brothers · **What happens:** wish, please, pluck, mean, present, sit · **To what, where:** brothers, twelve flowers, one, each, supper

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (girl, brothers), 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:pg540:41:67
# text = The girl, wishing to please her brothers, plucked the twelve flowers, meaning to present one to each of them as they sat at supper.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	wishing	wish	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	acl	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	please	please	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
10	plucked	pluck	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	twelve	twelve	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	flowers	flower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	meaning	mean	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	present	present	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	obj	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	17	obl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nmod	_	_
23	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
24	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
26	at	at	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	supper	supper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wish** | gerund | the girl *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **please** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the girl *not said here* | girl's brothers |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus brother=Experiencer |
| 3 | **pluck** | past | the girl | the twelve flowers |  |  |  |  | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent flower=Patient |
| 4 | **mean** | gerund | the girl *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **present** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the girl *not said here* | one | each |  |  |  | vn fulfilling-13.4.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent one=Theme to each=Recipient |
| 6 | **sit** | past | brothers *= brother* |  |  | supper |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at supper=Location |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 66](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/41/66/)
- next →: [sentence 68](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/41/68/)
- ↑ back to [The Twelve Brothers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/41/)