---
title: They pushed off, but as they dipped the paddles into the water, they… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They pushed off, but as they dipped the paddles into the water, they snapped as the bows had done, and were quite useless. Who acts: Mink. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 34, 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/pg3027/34/65/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 34, sentence 65

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They pushed off, but as they dipped the paddles into the water, they snapped as the bows had done, and were quite useless.

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**Who acts:** Mink · **What happens:** push off, dip, snap, do, be · **To what, where:** paddles, water, bows

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 34. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Mink), 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:pg3027:34:65
# text = They pushed off, but as they dipped the paddles into the water, they snapped as the bows had done, and were quite useless.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	pushed	push	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	off	off	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
6	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	dipped	dip	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	paddles	paddle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
11	into	into	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	snapped	snap	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
17	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	bows	bow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
20	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
25	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
26	useless	useless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **push off** | past | Mink |  |  |  |  |  | vn push-12-1-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **dip** | past | Mink | the paddles |  | the water |  |  | vn funnel-9.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent paddle=Theme into water=Destination |
| 3 | **snap** | past | Mink |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **do** | past · perfect · passive |  | the bows |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |
| 5 | **is** | past | Mink *not said here* |  |  |  |  | useless *property* | 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.

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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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