---
title: He heard the drums and saw the soldiers marching; all the people wer… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He heard the drums and saw the soldiers marching; all the people were running to and fro. Who acts: soldier, soldiers, people. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tinder-box, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Tinder-box, sentence 126

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He heard the drums and saw the soldiers marching; all the people were running to and fro.

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**Who acts:** soldier, soldiers, people · **What happens:** hear, see, march, run, fro · **To what, where:** drums, soldiers

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tinder-box. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (soldier, soldiers, people), 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:pg640:46:126
# text = He heard the drums and saw the soldiers marching; all the people were running to and fro.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	drums	drum	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	soldiers	soldier	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	marching	march	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	13	det:predet	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
14	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	running	run	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	obl	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	fro	fro	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | soldier | the drums |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer drum=Stimulus |
| 2 | **see** | past | soldier *not said here* | the soldiers |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer soldier=Stimulus |
| 3 | **march** | gerund | the soldiers *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **run** | past · progressive | all people |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **fro** | infinitive | all people *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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