---
title: They caught the wind that blew before them, and the wind that blew b… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They caught the wind that blew before them, and the wind that blew behind them did not catch them. Who acts: steeds, wind. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 11, 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/pg3454/11/21/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 11, sentence 21

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They caught the wind that blew before them, and the wind that blew behind them did not catch them.

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**Who acts:** steeds, wind · **What happens:** catch, blow, not catch · **To what, where:** wind, steeds

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (steeds, wind), 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:pg3454:11:21
# text = They caught the wind that blew before them, and the wind that blew behind them did not catch them.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	6	nsubj	_	_
6	blew	blow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
7	before	before	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
13	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
14	blew	blow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	_
15	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	_
17	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
20	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **catch** | past | steeds *= steed* | the wind |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wind=Theme |
| 2 | **blow** | past | the wind |  |  |  | before steeds *= steed* |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V apart»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **blow** | past | the wind |  |  |  |  | behind steeds *= steed* | vn split-23.2 «NP V apart»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **not** **catch** | past · do-support | the wind | steeds *= steed* |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |

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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 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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