---
title: The duck swam toward them, and Hansel got on her back and bade his l… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The duck swam toward them, and Hansel got on her back and bade his little sister sit beside him. Who acts: duck, Hansel, little sister. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Hansel and Grettel, sentence 125

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The duck swam toward them, and Hansel got on her back and bade his little sister sit beside him.

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**Who acts:** duck, Hansel, little sister · **What happens:** swim, get, sit · **To what, where:** back

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (duck, Hansel, little sister), 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:pg503:35:125
# text = The duck swam toward them, and Hansel got on her back and bade his little sister sit beside him.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	swam	swim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	toward	toward	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	Hansel	Hansel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	bade	bade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
16	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	sit	sit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	parataxis	_	_
19	beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swim** | past | the duck |  |  |  |  | toward quack | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme toward they=Trajectory |
| 2 | **get** | past | Hansel |  |  | duck's back and bade |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent on back=Source |
| 3 | **sit** | infinitive | bade's little sister |  |  |  |  | beside bade | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent beside he=Location |

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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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