---
title: Four millstones formed his shield, and on a box-tree close by hung h… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Four millstones formed his shield, and on a box-tree close by hung his giant sword. Who acts: Four millstones. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2, 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/pg3282/2/127/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2, sentence 127

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Four millstones formed his shield, and on a box-tree close by hung his giant sword.

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**Who acts:** Four millstones · **What happens:** form, hang · **To what, where:** shield, giant sword

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Four millstones), 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:pg3282:2:127
# text = Four millstones formed his shield, and on a box-tree close by hung his giant sword.
1	Four	four	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	millstones	millstone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	formed	form	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	shield	shield	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	box	box	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
13	close	close	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	parataxis	_	_
14	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
15	hung	hang	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
17	giant	giant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	sword	sword	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **form** | past | Four millstones | tee's shield |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location shield=Theme |
| 2 | **hang** | gerund | Four millstones *not said here* | tee's giant sword |  |  |  |  | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sword=Patient |

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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 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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