---
title: When the cattle, which were thirsty, caught sight of the water, they… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When the cattle, which were thirsty, caught sight of the water, they ran as quickly as they could to drink. Who acts: cattle. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, 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/pg640/41/261/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, sentence 261

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When the cattle, which were thirsty, caught sight of the water, they ran as quickly as they could to drink.

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**Who acts:** cattle · **What happens:** be, catch, run, drink, sight · **To what, where:** water

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cattle), 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:pg640:41:261
# text = When the cattle, which were thirsty, caught sight of the water, they ran as quickly as they could to drink.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	cattle	cattle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
7	thirsty	thirsty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	caught	catch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	amod	_	_
10	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	as	as	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
19	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	drink	drink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the cattle |  |  |  |  | thirsty *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **catch** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **run** | past | the cattle |  |  |  |  | quickly *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **drink** | to-infinitive | the cattle *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **sight** |  |  | the water |  |  |  |  | nom sight «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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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