---
title: Instantly the villagers went away and each caught hold of his own wi… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Instantly the villagers went away and each caught hold of his own wife and throttled her, and the next day they all went off to sell their dead wives. Who acts: villagers. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 11, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cla
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/11/96/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 11, sentence 96

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Instantly the villagers went away and each caught hold of his own wife and throttled her, and the next day they all went off to sell their dead wives.

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**Who acts:** villagers · **What happens:** go away, catch, throttle, go off, sell, hold · **To what, where:** wife, dead wives, own wife

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (villagers), 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:pg3027:11:96
# text = Instantly the villagers went away and each caught hold of his own wife and throttled her, and the next day they all went off to sell their dead wives.
1	Instantly	instantly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	villagers	villager	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	away	away	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	9	det	_	_
8	caught	catch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	amod	_	_
9	hold	hold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
12	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	throttled	throttle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
16	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	next	next	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl:unmarked	_	_
22	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
23	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	22	det	_	_
24	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
25	off	off	ADP	RP	_	24	compound:prt	_	_
26	to	to	PART	TO	_	27	mark	_	_
27	sell	sell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	advcl	_	_
28	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	30	nmod:poss	_	_
29	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	wives	wife	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go away** | past | the villagers |  |  |  |  | away, instantly *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **catch** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **throttle** | past | the villagers *not said here* | wife |  |  |  |  | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Patient |
| 4 | **go off** | past | villagers *= villager* |  |  |  | day |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **sell** | to-infinitive | villagers *= villager* *not said here* | villagers's dead wives |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wife=Theme |
| 6 | **hold** |  |  | Goldsmith's own wife |  |  |  |  | nom hold «act transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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