---
title: Then they beat their staves against the ground one against the other… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Then they beat their staves against the ground one against the other, as if there had been a hundred sheep between them. Who acts: men. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 19, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/33/30/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [More English Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/) / [More English Fairy Tales, part 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/33/) / 30

# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 19, sentence 30

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then they beat their staves against the ground one against the other, as if there had been a hundred sheep between them.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** men · **What happens:** beat, be · **To what, where:** staves

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 19. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg14241:33:30
# text = Then they beat their staves against the ground one against the other, as if there had been a hundred sheep between them.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	beat	beat	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	staves	stave	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	against	against	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
9	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	flat	_	_
10	against	against	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
15	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	18	expl	_	_
17	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	21	cop	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	21	nummod	_	_
21	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
22	between	between	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **beat** | present | men *= man* | men's staves |  |  | then | against the ground | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent stave=Instrument against ground=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | as hundred sheep; between men *= man* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/33/29/)
- next →: [sentence 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/33/31/)
- ↑ back to [More English Fairy Tales, part 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/33/)