---
title: Then they wheeled round and kicked him till they could kick no more. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then they wheeled round and kicked him till they could kick no more. Who acts: groans. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/9/108/)

<!-- 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 Lilac Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/9/) / 108

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 108

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then they wheeled round and kicked him till they could kick no more.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** groans · **What happens:** wheel round, kick · **To what, where:** giant, more

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (groans), 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:pg3454:9:108
# text = Then they wheeled round and kicked him till they could kick no more.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	wheeled	wheel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	round	round	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	kicked	kick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	kick	kick	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
12	no	no	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wheel round** | past | groans *= groan* |  |  |  | then | round *property* | vn drive-11.5 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **kick** | past | groans *= groan* *not said here* | giant |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent he=Patient |
| 3 | **kick** | could | groans *= groan* | more |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent more=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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 107](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/9/107/)
- next →: [sentence 109](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/9/109/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/9/)