---
title: “Yes,” said she, and taking it in her lap combed it with a silver co… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Yes,” said she, and taking it in her lap combed it with a silver comb, and then placed it upon a primrose bank. Who acts: lady, taking. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Heads of the Well, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Three Heads of the Well, sentence 21

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Yes,” said she, and taking it in her lap combed it with a silver comb, and then placed it upon a primrose bank.

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**Who acts:** lady, taking · **What happens:** say, take, comb, place · **To what, where:** bank, lap, primrose bank · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Heads of the Well. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lady, taking), 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:pg7439:49:21
# text = “Yes,” said she, and taking it in her lap combed it with a silver comb, and then placed it upon a primrose bank.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Yes	yes	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Pos	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
9	taking	take	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	csubj	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	lap	lap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
14	combed	comb	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	silver	silver	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	comb	comb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
22	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	23	advmod	_	_
23	placed	place	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	_
25	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
27	primrose	primrose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	_
28	bank	bank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | lady |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **take** | gerund |  | bank |  | lady's lap |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent it=Value in lap=Location |
| 3 | **comb** | past | taking | bank |  |  |  | with a silver comb | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
| 4 | **place** | past | lady *not said here* | bank |  | a primrose bank | then |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme upon bank=Destination |

<!-- .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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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