---
title: He would thus be able to whisk the ball to and fro till, by-and-by,… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He would thus be able to whisk the ball to and fro till, by-and-by, the string would become quite loose, and it would fall to the ground. Who acts: cat, string, ball. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/29/28/)

<!-- 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 Brown Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/) / [The Brown Fairy Book, part 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/29/) / 28

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 28

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He would thus be able to whisk the ball to and fro till, by-and-by, the string would become quite loose, and it would fall to the ground.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** cat, string, ball · **What happens:** be, whisk, fro, become, fall · **To what, where:** ball

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cat, string, ball), 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:pg3282:29:28
# text = He would thus be able to whisk the ball to and fro till, by-and-by, the string would become quite loose, and it would fall to the ground.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	cop	_	_
5	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	whisk	whisk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	fro	fro	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	_
13	till	till	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	by	by	ADP	IN	_	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	by	by	ADP	IN	_	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	string	string	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
23	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	become	become	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
25	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
26	loose	loose	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	31	cc	_	_
29	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
30	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	31	aux	_	_
31	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
32	to	to	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | would | cat |  |  |  |  | able, thus *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **whisk** | to-infinitive | cat *not said here* | the ball |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ball=Patient |
| 3 | **fro** | to-infinitive | cat *not said here* |  |  |  |  | till *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **become** | would | the string |  |  |  |  | loose *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **fall** | would | ball |  |  |  |  | to the ground | vn acquiesce-95.1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to ground=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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/29/27/)
- next →: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/29/29/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/29/)