---
title: By-and-by they reached a man who was grinding stones to powder in hi… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: By-and-by they reached a man who was grinding stones to powder in his hands, as if they had been nuts. Who acts: historians, man. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 31, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/31/32/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 31, sentence 32

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By-and-by they reached a man who was grinding stones to powder in his hands, as if they had been nuts.

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**Who acts:** historians, man · **What happens:** reach, grind, powder, be · **To what, where:** man, stones, hands

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (historians, man), 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:pg2435:31:32
# text = By-and-by they reached a man who was grinding stones to powder in his hands, as if they had been nuts.
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	grinding	grind	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	acl:relcl	_	_
13	stones	stone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	powder	powder	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
20	as	as	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
21	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
22	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
23	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
24	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	25	cop	_	_
25	nuts	nut	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reach** | past | historians *= historian* | a man |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent man=Theme |
| 2 | **grind** | past · progressive | a man | stones |  |  |  |  | vn carve-21.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stone=Patient |
| 3 | **powder** | to-infinitive | a man *not said here* |  |  | man's hands |  |  | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | historians *= historian* |  |  |  |  | as nuts | tree rules |

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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:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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