---
title: ‘This spell I lay upon you, that you slacken not your course until y… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘This spell I lay upon you, that you slacken not your course until you come to my brother in the Underworld.’ Who acts: spell, you. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), sentence 22

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‘This spell I lay upon you, that you slacken not your course until you come to my brother in the Underworld.’

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**Who acts:** spell, you · **What happens:** lay, not slacken, come · **To what, where:** course

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (spell, you), 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:pg640:47:22
# text = ‘This spell I lay upon you, that you slacken not your course until you come to my brother in the Underworld.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	This	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	det	_	_
3	spell	spell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	slacken	slacken	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
13	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
15	until	until	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	come	come	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	Underworld	Underworld	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay** | present | this spell |  |  |  |  | upon you | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent upon you=Destination |
| 2 | **not** **slacken** | present | you | your course |  |  |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **come** | present | you |  |  |  |  | to my brother in the Underworld | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to brother=Initial\_Location |

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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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