---
title: He struggled with her, but could not free himself, and the witch cal… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He struggled with her, but could not free himself, and the witch called to her daughter, ‘Come and help me; we shall put him into the little dark room to be fattened. Who acts: property, witch, we. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 29, with its dependency 
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 52

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He struggled with her, but could not free himself, and the witch called to her daughter, ‘Come and help me; we shall put him into the little dark room to be fattened.

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**Who acts:** property, witch, we · **What happens:** struggle, not free, call, come, help, put · **To what, where:** property, daughter, me, little dark room · **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 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (property, witch, we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg5615:2894`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg5615:29:52
# text = He struggled with her, but could not free himself, and the witch called to her daughter, ‘Come and help me; we shall put him into the little dark room to be fattened.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	struggled	struggle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	_
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	free	free	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
10	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obj	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	21	punct	_	_
21	Come	come	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	15	ccomp	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	help	help	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	21	conj	_	_
24	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	_
25	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	28	punct	_	_
26	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
27	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
28	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	parataxis	_	_
29	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	obj	_	_
30	into	into	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
32	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	amod	_	_
33	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	amod	_	_
34	room	room	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	_
35	to	to	PART	TO	_	37	mark	_	_
36	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	37	aux:pass	_	_
37	fattened	fatten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	28	advcl	_	_
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **struggle** | past | property |  |  |  |  | with witch | vn battle-36.4 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with she=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **not** **free** | could | property *not said here* | property |  |  |  |  | vn free-10.6.3-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Causer himself=Source |
| 3 | **call** *speech: assert* | past | the witch |  | witch's daughter |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V PP.recipient that S»: agent=Agent to daughter=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **come** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **help** | infinitive |  |  | me |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Beneficiary |
| 6 | **put** | shall | we |  | property | the little dark room |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent he=Goal |
| 7 | **fatten** | to-infinitive · passive | we *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V» |

<!-- .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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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