---
title: But the barn was too low, there was no room to swing the flail, and… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the barn was too low, there was no room to swing the flail, and the floors were too small. Who acts: barn, room, floors. 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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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 73

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But the barn was too low, there was no room to swing the flail, and the floors were too small.

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**Who acts:** barn, room, floors · **What happens:** be, swing · **To what, where:** flail

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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 (barn, room, floors), 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:pg5615:12:73
# text = But the barn was too low, there was no room to swing the flail, and the floors were too small.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	barn	barn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	too	too	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	low	low	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	9	expl	_	_
9	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
10	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	11	det	_	_
11	room	room	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	swing	swing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	acl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	flail	flail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	floors	floor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nsubj	_	_
20	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
21	too	too	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the barn |  |  |  |  | low *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** | past | no room |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **swing** | to-infinitive | no room *not said here* | the flail |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent flail=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | past | the floors |  |  |  |  | small *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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 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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