---
title: The moment their backs were turned the stone untied itself. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The moment their backs were turned the stone untied itself. Who acts: moment. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nettle Spinner, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Nettle Spinner, sentence 86

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The moment their backs were turned the stone untied itself.

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**Who acts:** moment · **What happens:** turn, untie · **To what, where:** backs, stone

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nettle Spinner. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (moment), 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:pg540:42:86
# text = The moment their backs were turned the stone untied itself.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
3	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	backs	back	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	turned	turn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl:relcl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	untied	untie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	itself	itself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **turn** | past · passive |  | soldiers's backs |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **untie** | past | the moment | stone |  |  |  |  | vn disassemble-23.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent itself=Patient |

<!-- .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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