---
title: That day his sister, who thought her brother’s steps were long in re… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: That day his sister, who thought her brother’s steps were long in returning, took out the knife and found the blade was red as blood. Who acts: sister, steps, day, blade. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of 
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 20, sentence 74

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That day his sister, who thought her brother’s steps were long in returning, took out the knife and found the blade was red as blood.

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**Who acts:** sister, steps, day, blade, brother · **What happens:** think, be, return, take out, find, step · **To what, where:** knife · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sister, steps, day, blade), 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:pg5615:20:74
# text = That day his sister, who thought her brother’s steps were long in returning, took out the knife and found the blade was red as blood.
1	That	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	det	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
8	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’s	's	PART	POS	_	9	case	_	_
11	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	ccomp	_	_
14	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
15	returning	return	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
17	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	out	out	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	conj	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	blade	blade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	_
25	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
26	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	ccomp	_	_
27	as	as	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	blood	blood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | noise's sister |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past | sister's brother's steps |  |  |  |  | long *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **return** | gerund | sister's brother's steps *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **take out** | past | that day | the knife |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent knife=Theme |
| 5 | **find** | past | that day *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **is** | past | the blade |  |  |  |  | as blood; red *property* | tree rules |
| 7 | **step** |  | sister's brother |  |  |  |  |  | nom step «act transitive»: poss=agent |

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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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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