---
title: The girls stepped in, Elsa very cautiously, for which she was much l… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The girls stepped in, Elsa very cautiously, for which she was much laughed at by her friend, who used the fish scales for a rudder. Who acts: girls, friend. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/62/)

<!-- 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/) / 62

# The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 62

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The girls stepped in, Elsa very cautiously, for which she was much laughed at by her friend, who used the fish scales for a rudder.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** girls, friend · **What happens:** step in, laugh, use · **To what, where:** Elsa, girl, fish scales

<!-- .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 (girls, friend), 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:pg641:2:62
# text = The girls stepped in, Elsa very cautiously, for which she was much laughed at by her friend, who used the fish scales for a rudder.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stepped	step	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	Elsa	Elsa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	cautiously	cautiously	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	obl	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux:pass	_	_
14	much	much	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	parataxis	_	_
16	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	obl	_	_
17	by	by	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl:agent	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	22	nsubj	_	_
22	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	acl:relcl	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	compound	_	_
25	scales	scale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obj	_	_
26	for	for	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	rudder	rudder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **step in** | past | the girls | Elsa |  |  |  | cautiously *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **laugh** | past · passive | girl's friend | girl |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Theme |
| 3 | **use** | past | girl's friend | the fish scales |  |  |  | for a rudder | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP PP.predicate»: agent=Agent scale=Theme for rudder=Eventuality |

<!-- .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 61](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/61/)
- next →: [sentence 63](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/63/)
- ↑ back to [A Tale of the Tontlawald](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/)