---
title: One by one he touched them with the end of his staff, till at length… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: One by one he touched them with the end of his staff, till at length they all stood before him. Who acts: One, drops. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, 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/pg3282/24/107/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 107

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One by one he touched them with the end of his staff, till at length they all stood before him.

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**Who acts:** One, drops · **What happens:** touch, stand · **To what, where:** drops

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (One, drops), 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:pg3282:24:107
# text = One by one he touched them with the end of his staff, till at length they all stood before him.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nsubj	_	_
2	by	by	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	1	nmod	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	staff	staff	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	till	till	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	17	det	_	_
19	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
20	before	before	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **touch** | past | One by one | drops *= drop* |  |  | with the end of castle's staff |  | vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent they=Experiencer with end=Instrument |
| 2 | **stand** | past | drops *= drop* |  |  |  | till length; before castle |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before he=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.

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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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