---
title: The horse in its fright suddenly reared, and before anyone could sto… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The horse in its fright suddenly reared, and before anyone could stop it flung the maiden into the swift current below. Who acts: horse, anyone, ball. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, 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/pg503/26/53/)

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners, sentence 53

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The horse in its fright suddenly reared, and before anyone could stop it flung the maiden into the swift current below.

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**Who acts:** horse, anyone, ball · **What happens:** rear, stop, fling, fright · **To what, where:** maiden, swift current

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Water-lily. the Gold-spinners. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (horse, anyone, ball), 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:pg503:26:53
# text = The horse in its fright suddenly reared, and before anyone could stop it flung the maiden into the swift current below.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	fright	fright	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
6	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	reared	rear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	before	before	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	anyone	anyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	13	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	stop	stop	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	flung	fling	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	maiden	maiden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	into	into	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	swift	swift	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	_
21	current	current	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
22	below	below	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **rear** | past | the horse in ball's fright |  |  |  |  | suddenly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **stop** | could | anyone |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **fling** | past | ball | the maiden |  | the swift current |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent maiden=Theme into current=Destination |
| 4 | **fright** |  | ball |  |  |  |  |  | nom fright «feeling transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 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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