---
title: They seized the horses, killed the coachman, footmen and postilions,… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They seized the horses, killed the coachman, footmen and postilions, and dragged Gerda out of the carriage. Who acts: robbers. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/10/4/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 10, sentence 4

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They seized the horses, killed the coachman, footmen and postilions, and dragged Gerda out of the carriage.

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**Who acts:** robbers · **What happens:** seize, kill, drag · **To what, where:** horses, coachman, Gerda, carriage

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (robbers), 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:pg5615:10:4
# text = They seized the horses, killed the coachman, footmen and postilions, and dragged Gerda out of the carriage.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	seized	seize	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	horses	horse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	killed	kill	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	coachman	coachman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	footmen	footman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	appos	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	postilions	postilion	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	dragged	drag	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
16	Gerda	Gerda	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
17	out	out	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	carriage	carriage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seize** | past | robbers *= robber* | the horses |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent horse=Theme |
| 2 | **kill** | past | robbers *= robber* *not said here* | the coachman |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent coachman=Theme |
| 3 | **drag** | past | robbers *= robber* *not said here* | Gerda |  | the carriage |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent gerda=Theme out carriage=Initial\_Location |

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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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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