---
title: And they all took to holding water in their mouths that they might g… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And they all took to holding water in their mouths that they might gurgle whenever anyone spoke to them. Who acts: ladies, anyone. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nightingale, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Nightingale, sentence 91

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And they all took to holding water in their mouths that they might gurgle whenever anyone spoke to them.

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**Who acts:** ladies, anyone · **What happens:** take, hold, gurgle, speak · **To what, where:** mouths, ladies · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nightingale. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ladies, anyone), 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:pg640:48:91
# text = And they all took to holding water in their mouths that they might gurgle whenever anyone spoke to them.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	2	det	_	_
4	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	amod	_	_
7	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	mouths	mouth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	gurgle	gurgle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
15	whenever	whenever	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	17	advmod	_	_
16	anyone	anyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	17	nsubj	_	_
17	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | ladies *= lady* |  |  | ladies's mouths |  | to holding water *result* | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to water=Result |
| 2 | **hold** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **gurgle** | might | ladies *= lady* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | anyone |  | ladies *= lady* |  |  | whenever *property* | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to they=Co-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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