---
title: But hardly had she plucked the flowers when her brothers were turned… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But hardly had she plucked the flowers when her brothers were turned into twelve ravens, who flew croaking over the wood, and the house and garden vanished also. Who acts: girl, twelve ravens, house. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers, with its dependency tree and
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Brothers, sentence 68

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But hardly had she plucked the flowers when her brothers were turned into twelve ravens, who flew croaking over the wood, and the house and garden vanished also.

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**Who acts:** girl, twelve ravens, house · **What happens:** pluck, turn, fly, croak, vanish · **To what, where:** flowers, brothers, twelve ravens, wood

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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 (girl, twelve ravens, house), 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:pg540:41:68
# text = But hardly had she plucked the flowers when her brothers were turned into twelve ravens, who flew croaking over the wood, and the house and garden vanished also.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	plucked	pluck	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	flowers	flower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	12	mark	_	_
9	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	turned	turn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	acl	_	_
13	into	into	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	twelve	twelve	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	nummod	_	_
15	ravens	raven	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj	_	_
18	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
19	croaking	croak	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	xcomp	_	_
20	over	over	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nsubj	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
28	garden	garden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	conj	_	_
29	vanished	vanish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
30	also	also	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pluck** | past | girl | the flowers |  |  |  | hardly *property* | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent flower=Patient |
| 2 | **turn** | past · passive |  | girl's brothers |  | twelve ravens |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: subject=Theme into raven=Trajectory |
| 3 | **fly** | past | twelve ravens |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **croak** | gerund | twelve ravens *not said here* |  |  | the wood |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **vanish** | past | the house and garden |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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