---
title: But no sooner did they touch the clerk than they stuck on too, and s… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But no sooner did they touch the clerk than they stuck on too, and so there were seven of them running after Dullhead and his goose. Who acts: girls, seven. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Goose, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Goose, sentence 44

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But no sooner did they touch the clerk than they stuck on too, and so there were seven of them running after Dullhead and his goose.

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**Who acts:** girls, seven · **What happens:** touch, stick on, be, run · **To what, where:** clerk

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Goose. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (girls, seven), 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:pg540:48:44
# text = But no sooner did they touch the clerk than they stuck on too, and so there were seven of them running after Dullhead and his goose.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	3	det	_	_
3	sooner	soon	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	6	advmod	_	_
4	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	touch	touch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	clerk	clerk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	stuck	stick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
12	on	on	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	too	too	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
17	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	18	expl	_	_
18	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	advcl	_	_
19	seven	seven	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	22	nsubj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nmod	_	_
22	running	run	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	advcl	_	_
23	after	after	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	Dullhead	Dullhead	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
26	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	goose	goose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **touch** | past · do-support | girls *= girl* | the clerk |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme clerk=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **stick on** | past | girls *= girl* |  |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **be** | past | seven of girls *not said here* |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **run** | gerund | seven of girls |  |  |  | after Dullhead and Dullhead's goose |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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