---
title: Her stepmother asked her how it had come about that she had grown so… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Her stepmother asked her how it had come about that she had grown so beautiful. Who acts: stepmother, world. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 31, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 31, sentence 56

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Her stepmother asked her how it had come about that she had grown so beautiful.

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**Who acts:** stepmother, world · **What happens:** ask, come, grow · **To what, where:** world · **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 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stepmother, world), 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:pg5615:31:56
# text = Her stepmother asked her how it had come about that she had grown so beautiful.
1	Her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	come	come	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	3	ccomp	_	_
9	about	about	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	grown	grow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
14	so	so	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | world's stepmother |  | world |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent she=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **come** | past · perfect | stepmother |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **grow** | past · perfect | world |  |  |  |  | beautiful *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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