---
title: The gallows was somewhat old and frail, and down it fell on the hors… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The gallows was somewhat old and frail, and down it fell on the horse's neck. Who acts: gallows, control. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 7, sentence 145

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The gallows was somewhat old and frail, and down it fell on the horse's neck.

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**Who acts:** gallows, control · **What happens:** be, fall · **To what, where:** neck

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gallows, control), 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:pg14241:21:145
# text = The gallows was somewhat old and frail, and down it fell on the horse's neck.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	gallows	gallows	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	somewhat	somewhat	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	frail	frail	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	down	down	ADP	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	's	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the gallows |  |  |  |  | old, somewhat *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | the gallows *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **fall** | past | control |  |  | the horse's neck |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on neck=Location |

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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:** «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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