---
title: When his mother put it to him to take the half cake with her blessin… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: When his mother put it to him to take the half cake with her blessing, he took it in preference to having the whole with her malison; and yet the half was bigger than what the other lad had got. Who acts: mother, water, half, other lad. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Red E
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Red Ettin, sentence 37

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When his mother put it to him to take the half cake with her blessing, he took it in preference to having the whole with her malison; and yet the half was bigger than what the other lad had got.

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**Who acts:** mother, water, half, other lad · **What happens:** put, take, have, be, get, bless · **To what, where:** cake, water, half cake, preference, whole

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Red Ettin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother, water, half, other lad), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg7439:1202`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg7439:26:37
# text = When his mother put it to him to take the half cake with her blessing, he took it in preference to having the whole with her malison; and yet the half was bigger than what the other lad had got.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	advcl	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	half	half	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	12	amod	_	_
12	cake	cake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	blessing	blessing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	preference	preference	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
23	having	have	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	21	acl	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	whole	whole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	with	with	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
28	malison	malison	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
29	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	35	punct	_	_
30	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	35	cc	_	_
31	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	35	advmod	_	_
32	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
33	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	35	nsubj	_	_
34	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	35	cop	_	_
35	bigger	big	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	18	conj	_	_
36	than	than	ADP	IN	_	37	case	_	_
37	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	35	obl	_	_
38	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	40	det	_	_
39	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	40	amod	_	_
40	lad	lad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	42	nsubj	_	_
41	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	42	aux	_	_
42	got	get	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	37	acl:relcl	_	_
43	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **put** | past | water's mother | cake | water |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **take** | to-infinitive | water's mother *not said here* | the half cake |  |  |  | with mother's blessing | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cake=Theme |
| 3 | **take** | past | water | cake |  | preference |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent it=Value in preference=Location |
| 4 | **have** | gerund | water *not said here* | the whole |  |  |  | with mother's malison | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent whole=Patient |
| 5 | **is** | past | the half |  |  |  | yet | big *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **get** | past · perfect | the other lad |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 7 | **bless** |  | mother |  |  |  |  |  | nom blessing «act transitive»: poss=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.

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**Text:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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