---
title: She is the worst witch that ever lived, and no iron can cut her. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She is the worst witch that ever lived, and no iron can cut her. Who acts: hag, worst witch, iron. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Ring (30), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, Prince Ring (30), sentence 137

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She is the worst witch that ever lived, and no iron can cut her.

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**Who acts:** hag, worst witch, iron · **What happens:** be, live, cut · **To what, where:** worst witch, hag

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Ring (30). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hag, worst witch, iron), 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:pg640:42:137
# text = She is the worst witch that ever lived, and no iron can cut her.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	worst	bad	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	5	amod	_	_
5	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
7	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	8	advmod	_	_
8	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	12	det	_	_
12	iron	iron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
13	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	cut	cut	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
15	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | hag | the worst witch |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **live** | past | the worst witch |  |  |  | ever |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **cut** | can | no iron | hag |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset she=Product |

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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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