---
title: When they had spat into each other’s mouths three times, the king sa… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When they had spat into each other’s mouths three times, the king said: Who acts: king. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 6, 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/pg2435/6/31/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 6, sentence 31

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When they had spat into each other’s mouths three times, the king said:

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** spat, say · **To what, where:** Beasts · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), 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:pg2435:6:31
# text = When they had spat into each other’s mouths three times, the king said:
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	spat	spat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	ccomp	_	_
5	into	into	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	7	det	_	_
7	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’s	's	PART	POS	_	7	case	_	_
9	mouths	mouth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
10	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spat** | past · perfect · passive |  | Beasts *= beast* |  |  | time |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the king |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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