---
title: Her own mother had died when she was quite a child, and her stepmoth… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Her own mother had died when she was quite a child, and her stepmother was as cruel and unkind to her as she could be. Who acts: own mother, mother, stepmother. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 3, sentence 111

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Her own mother had died when she was quite a child, and her stepmother was as cruel and unkind to her as she could be.

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**Who acts:** own mother, mother, stepmother · **What happens:** die, be · **To what, where:** child, HELENA

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (own mother, mother, stepmother), 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:pg7277:28:111
# text = Her own mother had died when she was quite a child, and her stepmother was as cruel and unkind to her as she could be.
1	Her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
2	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	died	die	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
9	quite	quite	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	11	det:predet	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
14	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	as	as	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	cruel	cruel	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	advcl	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	unkind	unkind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	conj	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	_
23	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
24	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
26	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **die** | past · perfect | HELENA's own mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 2 | **is a** | past | mother | quite child |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | HELENA's stepmother |  |  |  |  | cruel *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | HELENA's stepmother *not said here* |  | HELENA |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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