---
title: A countless number of mice, small and big, brown and grey, assembled… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A countless number of mice, small and big, brown and grey, assembled, and formed a circle round their king, who was a prisoner under Waska’s claws. Who acts: king. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Ring, 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/pg640/33/177/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Magic Ring, sentence 177

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A countless number of mice, small and big, brown and grey, assembled, and formed a circle round their king, who was a prisoner under Waska’s claws.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** assemble, form, be · **To what, where:** circle, prisoner, claws

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), 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:pg640:33:177
# text = A countless number of mice, small and big, brown and grey, assembled, and formed a circle round their king, who was a prisoner under Waska’s claws.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	countless	countless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	number	number	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	brown	brown	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	grey	grey	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	assembled	assemble	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	formed	form	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	circle	circle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	round	round	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
25	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	28	nsubj	_	_
26	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	cop	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	prisoner	prisoner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	conj	_	_
29	under	under	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
30	Waska	Waska	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	32	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	’s	's	PART	POS	_	30	case	_	_
32	claws	claw	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **assemble** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn herd-47.5.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **form** | past |  | a circle |  |  |  | round mice's king and a prisoner | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location circle=Theme |
| 3 | **is a** | past | mice's king and a prisoner | a prisoner |  | Waska's claws |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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