---
title: There were twelve threshing-floors, and the twelve men were at work… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There were twelve threshing-floors, and the twelve men were at work on six of them--two on each. Who acts: twelve threshing floors, twelve men. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 12, 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/pg5615/12/64/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 64

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There were twelve threshing-floors, and the twelve men were at work on six of them--two on each.

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**Who acts:** twelve threshing floors, twelve men · **What happens:** be, thresh · **To what, where:** work

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (twelve threshing floors, twelve men), 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:pg5615:12:64
# text = There were twelve threshing-floors, and the twelve men were at work on six of them--two on each.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	twelve	twelve	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	nummod	_	_
4	threshing	thresh	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	floors	floor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	twelve	twelve	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	parataxis	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	six	six	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	conj	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	20	nmod	_	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 | **be** | past | twelve threshing floors |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **thresh** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | the twelve men |  |  | work |  | on six of floors | tree rules |

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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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