---
title: So they waited for one month, for two, for six, for a year. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So they waited for one month, for two, for six, for a year. Who acts: guards. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nettle Spinner, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Nettle Spinner, sentence 116

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So they waited for one month, for two, for six, for a year.

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**Who acts:** guards · **What happens:** wait

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nettle Spinner. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (guards), 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:pg540:42:116
# text = So they waited for one month, for two, for six, for a year.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	waited	wait	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	for	for	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	nummod	_	_
6	month	month	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	six	six	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	year	year	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wait** | past | guards *= guard* |  |  |  | month; year | for two; for six | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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