---
title: The stalks had twined and twisted themselves together till they form… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The stalks had twined and twisted themselves together till they formed quite a ladder. Who acts: stalks. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jack Sells the Cow, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Jack Sells the Cow, sentence 16

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The stalks had twined and twisted themselves together till they formed quite a ladder.

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**Who acts:** stalks · **What happens:** twine, twist, form · **To what, where:** stalks, ladder

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jack Sells the Cow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stalks), 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:pg540:15:16
# text = The stalks had twined and twisted themselves together till they formed quite a ladder.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	stalks	stalk	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	twined	twine	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	twisted	twist	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
7	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	6	obj	_	_
8	together	together	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
9	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	formed	form	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
12	quite	quite	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	14	det:predet	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	ladder	ladder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **twine** | past · perfect · passive |  | the stalks |  |  |  |  | vn coil-9.6 «NP V NP PP.location»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **twist** | past |  | stalks *= stalk* |  |  |  | together *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent themselves=Theme |
| 3 | **form** | past | stalks *= stalk* | quite ladder |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location ladder=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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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