---
title: Before leaving he told his step-sister that she might go into every… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Before leaving he told his step-sister that she might go into every room in the house except into the cave where the dead robbers lay. Who acts: fox, sister, dead robbers. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Princes and Their Beasts (lithuanian Fairy Tale), with its depen
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/5/25/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Three Princes and Their Beasts (li…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/5/) / 25

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Three Princes and Their Beasts (lithuanian Fairy Tale), sentence 25

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Before leaving he told his step-sister that she might go into every room in the house except into the cave where the dead robbers lay.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** fox, sister, dead robbers · **What happens:** leave, tell, go, lay · **To what, where:** step sister, room · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Princes and Their Beasts (lithuanian Fairy Tale). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fox, sister, dead robbers), 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:pg641:5:25
# text = Before leaving he told his step-sister that she might go into every room in the house except into the cave where the dead robbers lay.
1	Before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	2	mark	_	_
2	leaving	leave	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
6	step	step	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	iobj	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
13	into	into	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	15	det	_	_
15	room	room	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
19	except	except	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	into	into	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
23	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	27	advmod	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	robbers	robber	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	nsubj	_	_
27	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **leave** | gerund | fox *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | fox |  | fox's step sister |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent sister=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **go** | might | sister |  |  | every room |  | in the house except the cave | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme into room=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **lay** | present | the dead robbers |  |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: 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.

<!-- 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 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/5/24/)
- next →: [sentence 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/5/26/)
- ↑ back to [The Three Princes and Their Beasts (lithuanian Fairy Tale)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/5/)