---
title: Scarcely had they been torn from the soil when they sowed themselves… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Scarcely had they been torn from the soil when they sowed themselves afresh, and grew as you were looking at them. Who acts: Scarcely, nettles, you. 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 99

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Scarcely had they been torn from the soil when they sowed themselves afresh, and grew as you were looking at them.

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**Who acts:** Scarcely, nettles, you · **What happens:** have, tear, sow, grow, look · **To what, where:** nettles

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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 (Scarcely, nettles, you), 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:pg540:42:99
# text = Scarcely had they been torn from the soil when they sowed themselves afresh, and grew as you were looking at them.
1	Scarcely	Scarcely	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	torn	tear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	xcomp	_	_
6	from	from	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	soil	soil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	sowed	sow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
12	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	11	obj	_	_
13	afresh	afresh	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
17	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
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 | **have** | past | Scarcely |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tear** | participle · passive |  | nettles *= nettle* |  |  |  | from the soil | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: subject=Patient from soil=Co-Patient |
| 3 | **sow** | past | nettles *= nettle* | nettles *= nettle* |  |  |  | afresh *property* | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent themselves=Theme |
| 4 | **grow** | past | Scarcely *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **look** | past · progressive | you |  |  |  |  | at nettles *= nettle* | 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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