---
title: When he had sat there a little while a cloud swept by, and, seizing… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When he had sat there a little while a cloud swept by, and, seizing him, carried him away. Who acts: Hunter. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Donkey Cabbage, part 1, sentence 64

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When he had sat there a little while a cloud swept by, and, seizing him, carried him away.

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**Who acts:** Hunter · **What happens:** sit, sweep, seize, carry away · **To what, where:** little, cloud, Hunter

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hunter), 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:pg640:10:64
# text = When he had sat there a little while a cloud swept by, and, seizing him, carried him away.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	sat	sit	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
8	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	cloud	cloud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	advcl	_	_
11	swept	sweep	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl	_	_
12	by	by	ADP	IN	_	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	seizing	seize	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	ccomp	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
19	carried	carry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
20	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	away	away	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · perfect | Hunter | a little |  | there |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **sweep** | participle |  | a cloud *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **seize** | gerund |  | Hunter |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 4 | **carry away** | past | Hunter *not said here* | Hunter |  |  |  | away *property* | 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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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