---
title: And he began to sing, dancing round Tom, like a bairn with his yello… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And he began to sing, dancing round Tom, like a bairn with his yellow hair, but looking older than ever with his grinning wrinkled bit of a face: Who acts: Yallery, grinning. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 4, with its dependency tree and the
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/18/11/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 4, sentence 11

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And he began to sing, dancing round Tom, like a bairn with his yellow hair, but looking older than ever with his grinning wrinkled bit of a face:

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**Who acts:** Yallery, grinning · **What happens:** begin, sing, dance, look, wrinkle, grin · **To what, where:** bit

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Yallery, grinning), 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:pg14241:18:11
# text = And he began to sing, dancing round Tom, like a bairn with his yellow hair, but looking older than ever with his grinning wrinkled bit of a face:
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	dancing	dance	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	_
8	round	round	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	Tom	Tom	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	like	like	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	bairn	bairn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
16	yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
21	older	old	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	20	xcomp	_	_
22	than	than	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	21	obl	_	_
24	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	27	mark	_	_
25	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	grinning	grinning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	_
27	wrinkled	wrinkle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	advcl	_	_
28	bit	bit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl:unmarked	_	_
29	of	of	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | Yallery |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | to-infinitive | Yallery *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **dance** | gerund | Yallery *not said here* |  |  |  |  | round Tom; like a bairn with Yallery's yellow hair | vn waltz-51.5 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **look** | gerund | Yallery *not said here* |  |  |  |  | old *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 5 | **wrinkle** | past | Yallery's grinning | bit of a face |  |  |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 6 | **grin** |  | Yallery |  |  |  |  |  | nom grinning «communication intransitive»: 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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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