---
title: The kittens oft gripped at the old wife's spindle, as it tussled ove… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The kittens oft gripped at the old wife's spindle, as it tussled over the hearthstone. " Who acts: spindle. 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 29

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The kittens oft gripped at the old wife's spindle, as it tussled over the hearthstone. "

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**Who acts:** spindle · **What happens:** grip, tussle · **To what, where:** kittens, spindle

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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 (spindle), 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:pg14241:21:29
# text = The kittens oft gripped at the old wife's spindle, as it tussled over the hearthstone. "
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	kittens	kitten	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	oft	oft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	gripped	grip	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	's	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	spindle	spindle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	tussled	tussle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
15	over	over	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	hearthstone	hearthstone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
19	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grip** | participle · passive |  | the kittens |  | the old wife's spindle |  |  | vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 2 | **tussle** | past | spindle |  |  |  |  | over the hearthstone | vn battle-36.4 «NP V PP.theme NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent over hearthstone=Theme |

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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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