---
title: Désiré flung him the oat cake, which the great dog instantly snapped… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Désiré flung him the oat cake, which the great dog instantly snapped up, and the young Prince passed quietly on. Who acts: Désiré, great dog, young Prince. 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 77

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Désiré flung him the oat cake, which the great dog instantly snapped up, and the young Prince passed quietly on.

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**Who acts:** Désiré, great dog, young Prince · **What happens:** fling, snap up, pass · **To what, where:** oat cake, Prince

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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 (Désiré, great dog, young Prince), 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:pg540:40:77
# text = Désiré flung him the oat cake, which the great dog instantly snapped up, and the young Prince passed quietly on.
1	Désiré	Désiré	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	flung	fling	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	oat	oat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	cake	cake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	obj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	instantly	instantly	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	snapped	snap	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
14	up	up	ADP	RP	_	13	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
20	passed	pass	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
21	quietly	quietly	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
22	on	on	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	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 | **fling** | past | Désiré | the oat cake | Prince |  |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Destination cake=Theme |
| 2 | **snap up** | past | the great dog | the oat cake |  |  |  | instantly *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location which=Theme |
| 3 | **pass** | past | the young Prince |  |  |  |  | quietly *property* | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=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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