---
title: She possessed a magic mirror, and when she used to stand before it g… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She possessed a magic mirror, and when she used to stand before it gazing at her own reflection and ask: Who acts: wife, mirror. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Bushy Bride, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Bushy Bride, sentence 109

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She possessed a magic mirror, and when she used to stand before it gazing at her own reflection and ask:

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**Who acts:** wife, mirror · **What happens:** possess, use, stand, gaze, ask · **To what, where:** magic mirror

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Bushy Bride. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife, mirror), 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:pg540:47:109
# text = She possessed a magic mirror, and when she used to stand before it gazing at her own reflection and ask:
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	possessed	possess	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	magic	magic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	mirror	mirror	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	stand	stand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	gazing	gaze	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
16	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
18	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	reflection	reflection	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	ask	ask	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **possess** | past | wife | a magic mirror |  |  |  |  | vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot mirror=Theme |
| 2 | **use** | past | wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **stand** | to-infinitive | wife *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **gaze** | gerund | mirror |  |  |  |  | at wife's own reflection | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at reflection=Theme |
| 5 | **ask** *speech: ask* | infinitive | wife *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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