---
title: If they failed to do as she told them she would certainly beat them… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If they failed to do as she told them she would certainly beat them this time till they bled. Who acts: horses, witch. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 3, sentence 16

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If they failed to do as she told them she would certainly beat them this time till they bled.

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**Who acts:** horses, witch · **What happens:** fail, not do, tell, beat, bleed · **To what, where:** horses · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (horses, 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:pg640:32:16
# text = If they failed to do as she told them she would certainly beat them this time till they bled.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	failed	fail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
9	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	iobj	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	beat	beat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
14	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	16	det	_	_
16	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl:unmarked	_	_
17	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	bled	bleed	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fail** | past | horses *= horse* |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **not** **do** | to-infinitive | horses *= horse* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | witch |  | horses *= horse* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **beat** | would | witch | horses *= horse* |  |  | time | certainly *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location they=Theme |
| 5 | **bleed** | past | horses *= horse* |  |  |  |  |  | vn substance\_emission-43.4-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Source |

<!-- .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 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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