---
title: By his first wife the peasant had a daughter called Elsa, a good qui… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: By his first wife the peasant had a daughter called Elsa, a good quiet girl, who only wanted to live in peace, but this her stepmother would not allow. Who acts: peasant, good quiet girl, stepmother. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald, with its dependency 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/15/)

<!-- 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/) / [A Tale of the Tontlawald](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/) / 15

# The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
By his first wife the peasant had a daughter called Elsa, a good quiet girl, who only wanted to live in peace, but this her stepmother would not allow.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** peasant, good quiet girl, stepmother · **What happens:** have, call, want, live, not allow · **To what, where:** daughter, peace · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (peasant, good quiet girl, stepmother), 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:pg641:2:15
# text = By his first wife the peasant had a daughter called Elsa, a good quiet girl, who only wanted to live in peace, but this her stepmother would not allow.
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
3	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	4	amod	_	_
4	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	peasant	peasant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	acl	_	_
11	Elsa	Elsa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
14	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
15	quiet	quiet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
19	only	only	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	xcomp	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	peace	peace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
26	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
27	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	29	det	_	_
28	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nsubj	_	_
30	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	32	aux	_	_
31	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	32	advmod	_	_
32	allow	allow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | the peasant | a daughter |  |  |  | by two's first wife | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent daughter=Patient |
| 2 | **call** | participle |  | a daughter *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **want** | past | a good quiet girl |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 4 | **live** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | a good quiet girl *not said here* |  |  | peace |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in peace=Location |
| 5 | **not** **allow** | would | peasant's stepmother |  |  |  |  |  | vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Causer |

<!-- .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 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/14/)
- next →: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/16/)
- ↑ back to [A Tale of the Tontlawald](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/)