---
title: They instantly flew off to obey his commands, and spread themselves… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They instantly flew off to obey his commands, and spread themselves over the whole earth. Who acts: spirits, word. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 4, sentence 48

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They instantly flew off to obey his commands, and spread themselves over the whole earth.

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**Who acts:** spirits, word · **What happens:** fly off, obey, spread, command · **To what, where:** commands, spirits, whole earth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (spirits, word), 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:pg640:17:48
# text = They instantly flew off to obey his commands, and spread themselves over the whole earth.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	instantly	instantly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	off	off	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	obey	obey	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	commands	command	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	spread	spread	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
12	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	11	obj	_	_
13	over	over	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly off** | past | spirits *= spirit* |  |  |  |  | instantly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **obey** | to-infinitive | spirits *= spirit* *not said here* | word's commands |  |  |  |  | vn abide\_by-93.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent command=Theme |
| 3 | **spread** | past | spirits *= spirit* *not said here* | spirits *= spirit* |  | the whole earth |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent themselves=Theme over earth=Destination |
| 4 | **command** |  | word |  |  |  |  |  | nom command «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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