---
title: As soon as the handkerchief touched the ground a deep, broad river w… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As soon as the handkerchief touched the ground a deep, broad river would spring up, which would hinder the witch’s progress. Who acts: deep broad river, witch. 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 46

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As soon as the handkerchief touched the ground a deep, broad river would spring up, which would hinder the witch’s progress.

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**Who acts:** deep broad river, witch · **What happens:** touch, spring up, hinder, progress · **To what, where:** ground, progress

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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 (deep broad river, witch), 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:pg640:39:46
# text = As soon as the handkerchief touched the ground a deep, broad river would spring up, which would hinder the witch’s progress.
1	As	as	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	6	advmod	_	_
3	as	as	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	handkerchief	handkerchief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
6	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
10	deep	deep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
12	broad	broad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
14	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	spring	spring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	parataxis	_	_
16	up	up	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
19	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	hinder	hinder	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’s	's	PART	POS	_	22	case	_	_
24	progress	progress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **touch** | past |  | the ground |  |  |  | as the handkerchief; soon *property* | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme ground=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **spring up** | would | a deep broad river |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **hinder** | would |  | the witch's progress |  |  |  |  | vn discourage-64.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer progress=Eventuality |
| 4 | **progress** |  | the witch |  |  |  |  |  | nom progress «act intransitive»: 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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