---
title: The king shrank back, and ordered the nurse to take the baby away at… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The king shrank back, and ordered the nurse to take the baby away at once. Who acts: king, nurse. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 1, sentence 21

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The king shrank back, and ordered the nurse to take the baby away at once.

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**Who acts:** king, nurse · **What happens:** shrink back, order, take · **To what, where:** nurse, baby

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, nurse), 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:pg641:9:21
# text = The king shrank back, and ordered the nurse to take the baby away at once.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	shrank	shrink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	back	back	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	ordered	order	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	nurse	nurse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	baby	baby	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	away	away	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shrink back** | past | the king |  |  |  |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **order** | past | the king *not said here* | the nurse |  |  |  |  | vn order-58.3-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent nurse=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **take** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the nurse *not said here* | the baby |  |  |  | away *property* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent baby=Theme |

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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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