---
title: I shall lay two pieces of wood in the bed to answer for us when the… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I shall lay two pieces of wood in the bed to answer for us when the witch speaks to us. Who acts: I, witch. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 26, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/26/53/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 26, sentence 53

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I shall lay two pieces of wood in the bed to answer for us when the witch speaks to us.

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**Who acts:** I, witch · **What happens:** lay, answer, speak · **To what, where:** two pieces, bed, us · **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 26. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, witch), 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:pg5615:26:53
# text = I shall lay two pieces of wood in the bed to answer for us when the witch speaks to us.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	lay	lay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
5	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
13	for	for	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	_
15	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	speaks	speak	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay** | shall | I | two pieces of wood |  | the bed |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent piece=Theme in bed=Destination |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for us | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* | present | the witch |  | us |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to we=Co-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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