---
title: So he did what they said, and carried the sieve full of water into t… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So he did what they said, and carried the sieve full of water into the hut without spilling a drop. Who acts: water, wrens. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch (28), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch (28), sentence 41

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So he did what they said, and carried the sieve full of water into the hut without spilling a drop.

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**Who acts:** water, wrens · **What happens:** do, say, carry, spill · **To what, where:** sieve, hut, drop · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch (28). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (water, wrens), 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:pg640:39:41
# text = So he did what they said, and carried the sieve full of water into the hut without spilling a drop.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	obj	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	carried	carry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	sieve	sieve	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
15	into	into	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	hut	hut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
18	without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
19	spilling	spill	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	drop	drop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | water |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | wrens *= wren* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
| 3 | **carry** | past | water *not said here* | the sieve |  | the hut |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sieve=Theme |
| 4 | **spill** | gerund | water *not said here* | a drop |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location drop=Theme |

<!-- .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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