---
title: The slaves told their tale so well that their mistress insisted on g… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The slaves told their tale so well that their mistress insisted on going down to the shore and seeing the beautiful slippers for herself. Who acts: slaves, mistress. 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 pra
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 2, sentence 90

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The slaves told their tale so well that their mistress insisted on going down to the shore and seeing the beautiful slippers for herself.

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**Who acts:** slaves, mistress · **What happens:** tell, insist, go down, see · **To what, where:** tale, beautiful slippers · **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 (slaves, mistress), 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:pg641:39:90
# text = The slaves told their tale so well that their mistress insisted on going down to the shore and seeing the beautiful slippers for herself.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	slaves	slave	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	tale	tale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	iobj	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	mistress	mistress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	insisted	insist	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	ccomp	_	_
12	on	on	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
14	down	down	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	shore	shore	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	seeing	see	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	conj	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	slippers	slipper	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	_
23	for	for	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the slaves |  | slaves's tale |  |  | well *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent tale=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **insist** *speech: other* | participle | slaves's mistress |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **go down** | gerund | slaves's mistress *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to the shore; down *property* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 4 | **see** | gerund | slaves's mistress *not said here* | the beautiful slippers |  |  |  | for mistress | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer slipper=Stimulus |
| 5 | **tell** |  | slaves *= slave* |  |  |  |  |  | nom tale «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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