---
title: But the guards fell asleep, the bonds loosed themselves, and the spi… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the guards fell asleep, the bonds loosed themselves, and the spinner spun on. Who acts: guards, bonds. 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 97

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But the guards fell asleep, the bonds loosed themselves, and the spinner spun on.

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**Who acts:** guards, bonds · **What happens:** fall, loose, spin on · **To what, where:** bonds, spinner

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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 (guards, bonds), 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:pg540:42:97
# text = But the guards fell asleep, the bonds loosed themselves, and the spinner spun on.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	guards	guard	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	bonds	bond	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	loosed	loose	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	spinner	spinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
15	spun	spin	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	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 | **fall** | past | the guards |  |  |  |  | asleep *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **loose** | past | the bonds | bonds *= bond* |  |  |  | the spinner *obl* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent themselves=Patient |
| 3 | **spin on** | participle |  | the spinner *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme 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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