---
title: With a bound all three were at the spring, and as the youngest pluck… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: With a bound all three were at the spring, and as the youngest plucked a handful of wet moss, the two others sniffed at it with all their might. Who acts: spring, two others. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/15/28/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15, sentence 28

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With a bound all three were at the spring, and as the youngest plucked a handful of wet moss, the two others sniffed at it with all their might.

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**Who acts:** spring, two others · **What happens:** be, pluck, sniff · **To what, where:** handful

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (spring, two others), 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:pg3282:15:28
# text = With a bound all three were at the spring, and as the youngest plucked a handful of wet moss, the two others sniffed at it with all their might.
1	With	with	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	bound	bound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
4	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	5	det	_	_
5	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nmod	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	spring	spring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	as	as	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	youngest	young	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	15	obl	_	_
15	plucked	pluck	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	acl:relcl	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	handful	handful	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	wet	wet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	moss	moss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	24	nummod	_	_
24	others	other	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nsubj	_	_
25	sniffed	sniff	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
26	at	at	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	obl	_	_
28	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	31	mark	_	_
29	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	31	det:predet	_	_
30	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	31	nmod:poss	_	_
31	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  | at the spring | with a bound  all three | tree rules |
| 2 | **pluck** | participle | the spring *not said here* | a handful of wet moss |  |  |  | as the youngest | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent handful=Patient |
| 3 | **sniff** | past | the two others |  |  |  |  | at moss | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at it=Theme |

<!-- .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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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