---
title: And this is why to-day the country boys always throw stones at a tit… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And this is why to-day the country boys always throw stones at a titmouse. Who acts: this, country boys. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Canary, sentence 298

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And this is why to-day the country boys always throw stones at a titmouse.

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**Who acts:** this, country boys · **What happens:** be, throw · **To what, where:** stones, titmouse

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (this, country boys), 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:pg540:40:298
# text = And this is why to-day the country boys always throw stones at a titmouse.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
11	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	12	advmod	_	_
12	throw	throw	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl:relcl	_	_
13	stones	stone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	titmouse	titmouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | this |  |  |  |  | why *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **throw** | present | the country boys | stones |  | a titmouse | day | always *property* | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent stone=Theme at titmouse=Destination |

<!-- .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.

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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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