---
title: She beat and cuffed the poor child from morning till night, but as t… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She beat and cuffed the poor child from morning till night, but as the stepmother had the whip-hand of her husband there was no remedy. Who acts: peasant, remedy. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/16/)

<!-- 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/) / 16

# The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 16

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She beat and cuffed the poor child from morning till night, but as the stepmother had the whip-hand of her husband there was no remedy.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** peasant, remedy · **What happens:** beat, cuff, have, be · **To what, where:** poor child, whip hand

<!-- .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, remedy), 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:pg641:2:16
# text = She beat and cuffed the poor child from morning till night, but as the stepmother had the whip-hand of her husband there was no remedy.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	beat	beat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	cuffed	cuff	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	from	from	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
10	till	till	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
17	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
19	whip	whip	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	_
25	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	26	expl	_	_
26	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
27	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	28	det	_	_
28	remedy	remedy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **beat** | past | peasant |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |
| 2 | **cuff** | past | peasant *not said here* | the poor child |  |  | morning; night |  | vn spank-18.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Patient |
| 3 | **have** | past | peasant *not said here* | the whip hand of peasant's husband |  |  |  | as the stepmother | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hand=Patient |
| 4 | **be** | past | no remedy |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/15/)
- next →: [sentence 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/17/)
- ↑ back to [A Tale of the Tontlawald](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/)