---
title: The lady-in-waiting promised to carry out the queen’s directions, an… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The lady-in-waiting promised to carry out the queen’s directions, and above all to keep the affair a secret. Who acts: lady. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Child Who Came From an Egg, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Child Who Came From an Egg, sentence 58

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The lady-in-waiting promised to carry out the queen’s directions, and above all to keep the affair a secret.

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**Who acts:** lady · **What happens:** promise, carry out, keep · **To what, where:** directions, affair

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Child Who Came From an Egg. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lady), 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:pg641:12:58
# text = The lady-in-waiting promised to carry out the queen’s directions, and above all to keep the affair a secret.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	waiting	waiting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
7	promised	promise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	out	out	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’s	's	PART	POS	_	12	case	_	_
14	directions	direction	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	above	above	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	16	obl	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	affair	affair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	secret	secret	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **promise** *speech: promise* | past | the lady and waiting |  |  |  |  |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **carry out** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the lady and waiting *not said here* | the queen's directions |  |  |  |  | vn act-114 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent direction=Eventuality |
| 3 | **keep** | to-infinitive | the lady and waiting *not said here* | the affair |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent affair=Theme |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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