---
title: The oars went overboard at once, and the little boat was tossed abou… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The oars went overboard at once, and the little boat was tossed about on the rolling billows like a nut-shell. Who acts: oars. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 25, 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/pg5615/25/93/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 25, sentence 93

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The oars went overboard at once, and the little boat was tossed about on the rolling billows like a nut-shell.

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**Who acts:** oars · **What happens:** go, toss · **To what, where:** little boat, rolling billows

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (oars), 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:pg5615:25:93
# text = The oars went overboard at once, and the little boat was tossed about on the rolling billows like a nut-shell.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	oars	oar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	overboard	overboard	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	boat	boat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj:pass	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	tossed	toss	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
14	about	about	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	rolling	rolling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	billows	billow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
19	like	like	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
21	nut	nut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	shell	shell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | the oars |  |  |  |  | overboard *property* | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme at once=Location |
| 2 | **toss** | past · passive |  | the little boat |  | the rolling billows like a nut shell |  | about *property* | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: subject=Theme on billow=Destination |

<!-- .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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