---
title: She said to the child: “Come, lay your head on my lap that I may com… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: She said to the child: “Come, lay your head on my lap that I may comb your hair.” Who acts: stepmother, lap. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Rose-tree, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Rose-tree, sentence 16

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She said to the child: “Come, lay your head on my lap that I may comb your hair.”

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**Who acts:** stepmother, lap · **What happens:** say, come, lay, comb · **To what, where:** child, head, lap, hair · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Rose-tree. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stepmother, lap), 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:pg7439:8:16
# text = She said to the child: “Come, lay your head on my lap that I may comb your hair.”
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	Come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	lay	lay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
11	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	lap	lap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
16	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	comb	comb	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	acl:relcl	_	_
20	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | stepmother |  | the child |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to child=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **come** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **lay** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | your head |  | my lap |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent head=Theme on lap=Destination |
| 4 | **comb** *in a quote* | may | my lap | your hair |  |  |  |  | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hair=Patient |

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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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