---
title: Checking her horse, she asked whether it would be better to take it… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Checking her horse, she asked whether it would be better to take it or let it lie. Who acts: leave, it, curl. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 2, sentence 41

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Checking her horse, she asked whether it would be better to take it or let it lie.

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**Who acts:** leave, it, curl · **What happens:** check, ask, be, take, let, lie · **To what, where:** horse, curl · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (leave, it, curl), 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:pg641:39:41
# text = Checking her horse, she asked whether it would be better to take it or let it lie.
1	Checking	check	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
2	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
5	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	cop	_	_
11	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	6	ccomp	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	csubj	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	conj	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	lie	lie	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **check** | gerund | leave *not said here* | leave's horse |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent horse=Theme |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | leave |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | would | it |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **take** | to-infinitive |  | curl |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 5 | **let** | infinitive |  | curl |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **lie** | infinitive | curl *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

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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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