---
title: They laid hold of him, and kept throwing him between them up to the… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They laid hold of him, and kept throwing him between them up to the ceiling, or jumping above him, until the cock crew, when they all disappeared. Who acts: doors. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Mountains, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Blue Mountains, sentence 48

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They laid hold of him, and kept throwing him between them up to the ceiling, or jumping above him, until the cock crew, when they all disappeared.

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**Who acts:** doors · **What happens:** lay, keep, throw up, jump, disappear, hold · **To what, where:** hold, daylight

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Mountains. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (doors), 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:pg640:45:48
# text = They laid hold of him, and kept throwing him between them up to the ceiling, or jumping above him, until the cock crew, when they all disappeared.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	laid	lay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	hold	hold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	throwing	throw	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	xcomp	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	between	between	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obl	_	_
13	up	up	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	ceiling	ceiling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
18	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	jumping	jump	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	conj	_	_
20	above	above	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
23	until	until	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	cock	cock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	compound	_	_
26	crew	crew	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
28	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	31	advmod	_	_
29	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	31	nsubj	_	_
30	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	31	advmod	_	_
31	disappeared	disappear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay** | past | doors *= door* | hold of daylight |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hold=Result |
| 2 | **keep** | past | doors *= door* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **throw up** | gerund | doors *= door* *not said here* | daylight |  |  |  | between doors *= door*; to the ceiling | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 4 | **jump** | gerund | doors *= door* *not said here* |  |  |  | until the cock crew | above daylight | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme above he=Trajectory |
| 5 | **disappear** | past | doors *= door* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **hold** |  |  | daylight |  |  |  |  | nom hold «act 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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