---
title: But they could not touch each other, for between them rolled great w… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But they could not touch each other, for between them rolled great waves, which looked as if they would sink the boats, yet never did. Who acts: paddles, great waves. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, In the Land of Souls (21), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, In the Land of Souls (21), sentence 33

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But they could not touch each other, for between them rolled great waves, which looked as if they would sink the boats, yet never did.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** paddles, great waves · **What happens:** not touch, roll, look, sink, not do · **To what, where:** each, great waves, boats

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, In the Land of Souls (21). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (paddles, great waves), 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:pg640:28:33
# text = But they could not touch each other, for between them rolled great waves, which looked as if they would sink the boats, yet never did.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	touch	touch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	5	obj	_	_
7	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	between	between	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	_
12	rolled	roll	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
13	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	waves	wave	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	17	nsubj	_	_
17	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	_
18	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
19	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	sink	sink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	ccomp	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	boats	boat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
26	yet	yet	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
27	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	28	advmod	_	_
28	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **touch** | could | paddles *= paddle* | each |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme each=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **roll** | past |  | great waves |  |  |  | between paddles *= paddle* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent wave=Theme between they=Trajectory |
| 3 | **look** | past | great waves |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **sink** *a condition, not said to happen* | would | paddles *= paddle* | the boats |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent boat=Patient |
| 5 | **not** **do** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 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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