---
title: As all seemed quiet, he threw down some little pebbles which hit the… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As all seemed quiet, he threw down some little pebbles which hit the jars. Who acts: captain, little pebbles. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 108

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As all seemed quiet, he threw down some little pebbles which hit the jars.

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**Who acts:** captain, little pebbles · **What happens:** seem, throw down, hit · **To what, where:** little pebbles, jars

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (captain, little pebbles), 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:pg503:34:108
# text = As all seemed quiet, he threw down some little pebbles which hit the jars.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	3	advmod	_	_
3	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
4	quiet	quiet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	threw	throw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	down	down	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	_
9	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	11	det	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	pebbles	pebble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
12	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
13	hit	hit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	jars	jar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | past | captain *not said here* |  |  |  |  | quiet *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **throw down** | past | captain | some little pebbles |  |  |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pebble=Theme |
| 3 | **hit** | past | some little pebbles | the jars |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme jar=Co-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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