---
title: One day the stepmother had given the girl a frightful beating, and t… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: One day the stepmother had given the girl a frightful beating, and then threatened to kill her outright. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 158

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One day the stepmother had given the girl a frightful beating, and then threatened to kill her outright.

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**What happens:** give, threaten, kill · **To what, where:** stepmother, girl, outright

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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: 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:pg641:2:158
# text = One day the stepmother had given the girl a frightful beating, and then threatened to kill her outright.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
5	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	given	give	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	iobj	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	frightful	frightful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	beating	beating	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	15	advmod	_	_
15	threatened	threaten	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	outright	outright	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | past · perfect · passive |  | the stepmother | the girl |  | day |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **threaten** | past |  |  |  |  | then |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **kill** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  | stepmother's outright |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent outright=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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