---
title: First she stole my King away, Then my children did she slay. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: First she stole my King away, Then my children did she slay. Who acts: witch, children. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Duck, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The White Duck, sentence 60

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First she stole my King away, Then my children did she slay.

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**Who acts:** witch, children · **What happens:** steal away, slay · **To what, where:** King

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Duck. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (witch, children), 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:pg640:29:60
# text = First she stole my King away, Then my children did she slay.
1	First	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	3	advmod	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stole	steal	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	away	away	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
11	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	slay	slay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **steal away** | past | witch | my King |  |  |  | away, first *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location king=Theme |
| 2 | **slay** | past · do-support | my children |  |  |  | then |  | vn murder-42.1 «NP V NP»: agent=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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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