---
title: ‘Take the reins,’ said she, ‘and strike them violently against the p… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Take the reins,’ said she, ‘and strike them violently against the pillars of the house.’ Who acts: woman. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1, 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/pg641/19/88/)

<!-- 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 Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/19/) / 88

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1, sentence 88

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Take the reins,’ said she, ‘and strike them violently against the pillars of the house.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** woman · **What happens:** take, say, strike · **To what, where:** reins, bits · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman), 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:pg641:19:88
# text = ‘Take the reins,’ said she, ‘and strike them violently against the pillars of the house.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	reins	rein	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
10	‘	‘	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	strike	strike	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	violently	violently	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
15	against	against	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	pillars	pillar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | infinitive |  | the reins |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rein=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **strike** | infinitive |  | bits *= bit* |  |  |  | against the pillars of the house; violently *property* | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent they=Instrument against pillar=Patient |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 87](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/19/87/)
- next →: [sentence 89](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/19/89/)
- ↑ back to [The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/19/)