---
title: The tender-hearted children seized hold of the little man, and strug… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The tender-hearted children seized hold of the little man, and struggled so long with the bird that at last he let go his prey. Who acts: hearted children, man, bird. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Snow-white and Rose-red, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cla
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/36/77/)

<!-- 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 Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [Snow-white and Rose-red](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/36/) / 77

# The Blue Fairy Book, Snow-white and Rose-red, sentence 77

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The tender-hearted children seized hold of the little man, and struggled so long with the bird that at last he let go his prey.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** hearted children, man, bird · **What happens:** seize, struggle, let, go, hold · **To what, where:** hold, bird, last, prey, little man

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Snow-white and Rose-red. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hearted children, man, bird), 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:pg503:36:77
# text = The tender-hearted children seized hold of the little man, and struggled so long with the bird that at last he let go his prey.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
2	tender	tender	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	hearted	hearted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	seized	seize	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	hold	hold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	struggled	struggle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
15	so	so	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	14	advmod	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
20	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	24	obj	_	_
21	at	at	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	last	last	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
23	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
24	let	let	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	acl:relcl	_	_
25	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	xcomp	_	_
26	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	prey	prey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seize** | past | the hearted children | hold of the little man |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hold=Theme |
| 2 | **struggle** | past | the hearted children *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with the bird; long *property* | vn battle-36.4 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with bird=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **let** | past | man | the bird |  | last |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **go** | infinitive | the bird *not said here* | man's prey |  |  |  |  | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location prey=Theme |
| 5 | **hold** |  |  | the little man |  |  |  |  | nom hold «act transitive»: of=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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 76](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/36/76/)
- next →: [sentence 78](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/36/78/)
- ↑ back to [Snow-white and Rose-red](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/36/)