---
title: This they did till the hard leather grew soft, and the panther was a… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: This they did till the hard leather grew soft, and the panther was able to slip his feet out of them. Who acts: This, hard leather, panther. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 17, 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/pg3027/17/124/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Orange Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/) / [Opening, part 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/17/) / 124

# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 17, sentence 124

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
This they did till the hard leather grew soft, and the panther was able to slip his feet out of them.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** This, hard leather, panther · **What happens:** do, grow, be, slip · **To what, where:** feet

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, hard leather, panther), 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:pg3027:17:124
# text = This they did till the hard leather grew soft, and the panther was able to slip his feet out of them.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	nsubj	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	leather	leather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
9	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	panther	panther	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	slip	slip	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	_
20	out	out	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | This |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **grow** | past | the hard leather |  |  |  |  | soft *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | the panther |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **slip** | to-infinitive | the panther *not said here* | panther's feet |  |  |  | out shoes *= shoe* | vn send-11.1-1 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent foot=Theme out they=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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:** «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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 123](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/17/123/)
- next →: [sentence 125](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/17/125/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/17/)