---
title: If they did not do as she told them she would beat them till they bl… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: If they did not do as she told them she would beat them till they bled. Who acts: beasts, 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/32/4/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Yellow Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/) / [The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/32/) / 4

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 3, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
If they did not do as she told them she would beat them till they bled.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** beasts, witch · **What happens:** not do, tell, beat, bleed · **To what, where:** beasts · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (beasts, witch), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg640:32:4
# text = If they did not do as she told them she would beat them till they bled.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
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	12	nsubj	_	_
11	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	beat	beat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	bled	bleed	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **do** | past · do-support | beasts *= beast* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | witch |  | beasts *= beast* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **beat** | would | witch | beasts *= beast* |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location they=Theme |
| 4 | **bleed** | past | beasts *= beast* |  |  |  |  |  | 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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/32/3/)
- next →: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/32/5/)
- ↑ back to [The Witch and Her Servants(22), part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/32/)