---
title: There was great excitement through all the village, and on the top o… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was great excitement through all the village, and on the top of the hill the people stood holding their sides with laughing, as they watched the Star Gazer trudging bravely along the valley with his bundle at the end of his stick. Who acts: great excitement, people, Star Gazer. A sentence of «
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/20/)

<!-- 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 Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Twelve Dancing Princesses](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/) / 20

# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sentence 20

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was great excitement through all the village, and on the top of the hill the people stood holding their sides with laughing, as they watched the Star Gazer trudging bravely along the valley with his bundle at the end of his stick.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** great excitement, people, Star Gazer · **What happens:** be, stand, hold, laugh, watch, trudge · **To what, where:** village, top, sides, Star Gazer, end

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (great excitement, people, Star Gazer), 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:pg540:2:20
# text = There was great excitement through all the village, and on the top of the hill the people stood holding their sides with laughing, as they watched the Star Gazer trudging bravely along the valley with his bundle at the end of his stick.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	excitement	excitement	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
5	through	through	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	8	det:predet	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	village	village	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
11	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	hill	hill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
19	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
20	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	xcomp	_	_
21	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	sides	side	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obj	_	_
23	with	with	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
24	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	20	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
26	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	28	mark	_	_
27	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
28	watched	watch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	conj	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
30	Star	Star	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	31	compound	_	_
31	Gazer	gazer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obj	_	_
32	trudging	trudge	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	28	xcomp	_	_
33	bravely	bravely	ADV	RB	_	32	advmod	_	_
34	along	along	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
35	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	valley	valley	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obl	_	_
37	with	with	ADP	IN	_	39	case	_	_
38	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	39	nmod:poss	_	_
39	bundle	bundle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obl	_	_
40	at	at	ADP	IN	_	42	case	_	_
41	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	42	det	_	_
42	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obl	_	_
43	of	of	ADP	IN	_	45	case	_	_
44	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	45	nmod:poss	_	_
45	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	42	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
46	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | great excitement |  |  | all village; there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme through village=Location |
| 2 | **stand** | past | the people |  |  | the top of the hill |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **hold** | gerund | the people *not said here* | people's sides |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent side=Theme |
| 4 | **laugh** | gerund | the people *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **watch** | past | people | the Star Gazer |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **trudge** | gerund | the Star Gazer *not said here* |  |  |  | at the end of excitement's stick | along the valley; with excitement's bundle; bravely *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme along valley=Trajectory |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/19/)
- next →: [sentence 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/21/)
- ↑ back to [The Twelve Dancing Princesses](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/)