---
title: So back they came to the queen witch, who knew not what to do. — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: So back they came to the queen witch, who knew not what to do. Who acts: imps, queen witch. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh, sentence 31

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So back they came to the queen witch, who knew not what to do.

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**Who acts:** imps, queen witch · **What happens:** come, not know, do · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (imps, queen witch), 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:pg7439:39:31
# text = So back they came to the queen witch, who knew not what to do.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	back	back	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
11	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	15	obj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | imps *= imp* |  |  |  |  | to the queen witch | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to witch=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **not** **know** | past | the queen witch |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **do** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

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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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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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