---
title: The White Duck threw herself upon them, and, covering up their littl… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The White Duck threw herself upon them, and, covering up their little bodies with her wings, she cried: Who acts: White Duck, Duck. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Duck, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/29/44/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Yellow Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/) / [The White Duck](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/29/) / 44

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The White Duck, sentence 44

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The White Duck threw herself upon them, and, covering up their little bodies with her wings, she cried:

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** White Duck, Duck · **What happens:** throw, cover up, cry · **To what, where:** Duck, little bodies

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Duck. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (White Duck, Duck), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg640:29:44
# text = The White Duck threw herself upon them, and, covering up their little bodies with her wings, she cried:
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	White	White	ADJ	NNP	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	Duck	Duck	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	threw	throw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	4	obj	_	_
6	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	covering	cover	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
12	up	up	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	bodies	body	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **throw** | past | the White Duck | Duck |  |  |  | upon children *= child* | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent herself=Theme upon they=Destination |
| 2 | **cover up** | gerund | the White Duck *not said here* | children's little bodies |  |  |  | with Duck's wings | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent body=Destination with wing=Theme |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | Duck |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 43](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/29/43/)
- next →: [sentence 45](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/29/45/)
- ↑ back to [The White Duck](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/29/)