---
title: They stood on the floor and blew at one another, and blew all their… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They stood on the floor and blew at one another, and blew all their feathers off, and their swan-skin came off like a shirt. Who acts: swans, swan skin. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Swans, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Six Swans, sentence 35

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They stood on the floor and blew at one another, and blew all their feathers off, and their swan-skin came off like a shirt.

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**Who acts:** swans, swan skin · **What happens:** stand, blow, come off · **To what, where:** floor, one, feathers

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Swans. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (swans, swan skin), 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:pg640:4:35
# text = They stood on the floor and blew at one another, and blew all their feathers off, and their swan-skin came off like a shirt.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	floor	floor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	blew	blow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	obj	_	_
10	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	9	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	blew	blow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
14	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	16	det:predet	_	_
15	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
17	off	off	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
20	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
21	swan	swan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
24	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
25	off	off	ADV	RB	_	24	compound:prt	_	_
26	like	like	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	shirt	shirt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | swans *= swan* |  |  | the floor |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on floor=Location |
| 2 | **blow** | past | swans *= swan* *not said here* | one |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent one=Patient |
| 3 | **blow** | past | swans *= swan* *not said here* | swans's feathers |  |  |  | off *property* | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent feather=Patient |
| 4 | **come off** | past | swans's swan skin |  |  |  |  | like a shirt | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V ADV»: agent=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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