---
title: At other times both leaves were held in the backward eddy, and faile… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At other times both leaves were held in the backward eddy, and failed to reach the main current of the noisy stream. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate, sentence 27

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At other times both leaves were held in the backward eddy, and failed to reach the main current of the noisy stream.

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**What happens:** hold, fail, not reach · **To what, where:** leaves, backward eddy, main current

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story Of The King Who Would Be Stronger Than Fate. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg3282:33:27
# text = At other times both leaves were held in the backward eddy, and failed to reach the main current of the noisy stream.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
4	both	both	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	5	det	_	_
5	leaves	leaf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	held	hold	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	backward	backward	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	eddy	eddy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	failed	fail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	main	main	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	current	current	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	noisy	noisy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	stream	stream	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | past · passive |  | both leaves |  | the backward eddy | time |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: subject=Theme in eddy=Location |
| 2 | **fail** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **not** **reach** | to-infinitive |  | the main current of the noisy stream |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent current=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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