---
title: The next day she told Helena to empty a pond near the house with a s… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The next day she told Helena to empty a pond near the house with a spoon which was full of holes. Who acts: HELENA, spoon. 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 125

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The next day she told Helena to empty a pond near the house with a spoon which was full of holes.

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**Who acts:** HELENA, spoon · **What happens:** tell, empty, be · **To what, where:** Helena, pond, house · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (HELENA, spoon), 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:pg7277:28:125
# text = The next day she told Helena to empty a pond near the house with a spoon which was full of holes.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	next	next	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	Helena	Helena	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	iobj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	empty	empty	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	pond	pond	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	near	near	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	spoon	spoon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
17	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
19	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	acl:relcl	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	holes	hole	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	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 | HELENA |  | Helena |  | day |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent helena=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **empty** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | HELENA *not said here* | a pond |  | the house |  | with a spoon | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent pond=Patient with spoon=Instrument |
| 3 | **is** | past | a spoon |  |  |  |  | of holes; full *property* | 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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