---
title: He therefore wrote back to his most trusted retainer that the queen… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He therefore wrote back to his most trusted retainer that the queen and her two whelps should be taken care of while he was away. Who acts: letter. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 33, 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/pg5615/33/57/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 33, sentence 57

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He therefore wrote back to his most trusted retainer that the queen and her two whelps should be taken care of while he was away.

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**Who acts:** letter · **What happens:** write back, trust, take, be · **To what, where:** trusted retainer, queen

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 33. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (letter), 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:pg5615:33:57
# text = He therefore wrote back to his most trusted retainer that the queen and her two whelps should be taken care of while he was away.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	therefore	therefore	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	wrote	write	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	back	back	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
7	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	8	advmod	_	_
8	trusted	trust	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	amod	_	_
9	retainer	retainer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	whelps	whelp	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	conj	_	_
17	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	aux:pass	_	_
19	taken	take	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	acl	_	_
20	care	care	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	obl	_	_
22	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
23	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
24	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
25	away	away	ADV	RB	_	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **write back** | past | letter |  | letter's trusted retainer |  |  | therefore *property* | vn lecture-37.11-1 «NP V PP.recipient PP.topic»: agent=Agent to retainer=Recipient |
| 2 | **trust** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **take** | should · passive |  | the queen and queen's two whelps |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: subject=Theme care=Destination |
| 4 | **is** | past | letter |  |  |  |  | away *property* | tree rules |

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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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