---
title: With a blow from the king, the sheep fell dead, and they opened its… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: With a blow from the king, the sheep fell dead, and they opened its body, only to be blinded by a rush of wings as the duck flew past. Who acts: sheep, king, rush, duck. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 10, sentence 13

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With a blow from the king, the sheep fell dead, and they opened its body, only to be blinded by a rush of wings as the duck flew past.

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**Who acts:** sheep, king, rush, duck · **What happens:** fall, open, blind, fly, rush · **To what, where:** body, wings

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sheep, king, rush, duck), 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:pg3454:10:13
# text = With a blow from the king, the sheep fell dead, and they opened its body, only to be blinded by a rush of wings as the duck flew past.
1	With	with	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	blow	blow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
4	from	from	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
10	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	opened	open	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
16	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	only	only	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
21	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	aux:pass	_	_
22	blinded	blind	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	parataxis	_	_
23	by	by	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	rush	rush	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nmod	_	_
28	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	31	mark	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	nsubj	_	_
31	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	advcl	_	_
32	past	past	ADV	RB	_	31	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fall** | past | the sheep |  |  |  |  | with a blow from the king; dead *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **open** | past | king | blow's body |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location body=Theme |
| 3 | **blind** | to-infinitive · passive | a rush of wings |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **fly** | past | the duck |  |  |  |  | past *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **rush** |  |  | wings |  |  |  |  | nom rush «act transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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