---
title: The very spits at the fire, as full as they could hold of partridges… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The very spits at the fire, as full as they could hold of partridges and pheasants, did fall asleep also. Who acts: horses. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, sentence 37

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The very spits at the fire, as full as they could hold of partridges and pheasants, did fall asleep also.

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**Who acts:** horses · **What happens:** spit, hold, fall · **To what, where:** fire

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (horses), 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:pg503:10:37
# text = The very spits at the fire, as full as they could hold of partridges and pheasants, did fall asleep also.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	very	very	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	spits	spit	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	as	as	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	parataxis	_	_
10	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	advcl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	partridges	partridge	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	pheasants	pheasant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	conj	_	_
21	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	xcomp	_	_
22	also	also	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spit** | present |  |  |  | the fire |  |  | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **hold** | could | horses *= horse* |  |  |  |  | of partridges and pheasants | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **fall** | past · do-support | horses *= horse* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | asleep *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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