---
title: The first thing Burchard did was to send to Renelde and to stop her… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The first thing Burchard did was to send to Renelde and to stop her wheel. Who acts: Burchard, first thing. 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 72

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The first thing Burchard did was to send to Renelde and to stop her wheel.

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**Who acts:** Burchard, first thing · **What happens:** do, be, stop · **To what, where:** first thing, Renelde, wheel

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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 (Burchard, first thing), 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:pg540:42:72
# text = The first thing Burchard did was to send to Renelde and to stop her wheel.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	3	amod	_	_
3	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
4	Burchard	Burchard	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	acl:relcl	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	send	send	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	Renelde	Renelde	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	stop	stop	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
14	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	wheel	wheel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | Burchard | the first thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Eventuality |
| 2 | **is** | past | the first thing |  | Renelde |  |  | send *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **stop** | to-infinitive | the first thing *not said here* | thing's wheel |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Subeventuality wheel=Eventuality |

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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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