---
title: Then the Dragon lashed with his tail till stones broke and trees cra… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the Dragon lashed with his tail till stones broke and trees crashed about him. Who acts: Dragon, stones, trees. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Sigurd, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/51/62/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Story of Sigurd](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/51/) / 62

# The Red Fairy Book, The Story of Sigurd, sentence 62

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then the Dragon lashed with his tail till stones broke and trees crashed about him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Dragon, stones, trees · **What happens:** lash, break, crash

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Sigurd. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dragon, stones, trees), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg540:51:62
# text = Then the Dragon lashed with his tail till stones broke and trees crashed about him.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	Dragon	Dragon	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	lashed	lash	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	stones	stone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
10	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	crashed	crash	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
14	about	about	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lash** | past | the Dragon |  |  |  | then | with Sigurd's tail | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V PP PP»: agent=Agent with tail=Instrument |
| 2 | **break** | past | stones |  |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **crash** | past | trees |  |  |  |  | about Sigurd | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme about he=Location |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 61](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/51/61/)
- next →: [sentence 63](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/51/63/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Sigurd](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/51/)