---
title: They bit, and they fought with their fore legs and their hind legs,… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They bit, and they fought with their fore legs and their hind legs, and sometimes the youth looked at them. Who acts: stones, youth. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dwarfs, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Three Dwarfs, part 3, sentence 10

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They bit, and they fought with their fore legs and their hind legs, and sometimes the youth looked at them.

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**Who acts:** stones, youth · **What happens:** bite, fight, look

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dwarfs, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stones, youth), 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:pg540:39:10
# text = They bit, and they fought with their fore legs and their hind legs, and sometimes the youth looked at them.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	bit	bite	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	fought	fight	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	fore	fore	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	hind	hind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	20	advmod	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
20	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
21	at	at	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bite** | past | stones *= stone* |  |  |  |  |  | vn swat-18.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **fight** | past | stones *= stone* |  |  |  |  | with stones's fore legs and stones's hind legs | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with leg=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **look** | past | the youth |  |  |  |  | at stones *= stone*; sometimes *property* | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at they=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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