---
title: He sat astride on the goat, struck his heels into its side, and went… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He sat astride on the goat, struck his heels into its side, and went rattling down the high-road like a hurricane. Who acts: BLOCKHEAD. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, sentence 111

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He sat astride on the goat, struck his heels into its side, and went rattling down the high-road like a hurricane.

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**Who acts:** BLOCKHEAD · **What happens:** sit, strike, go, rattle · **To what, where:** heels, side

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (BLOCKHEAD), 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:pg640:50:111
# text = He sat astride on the goat, struck his heels into its side, and went rattling down the high-road like a hurricane.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	astride	astride	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	goat	goat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	struck	strike	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	heels	heel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
11	into	into	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
17	rattling	rattle	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	16	xcomp	_	_
18	down	down	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
20	high	high	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
23	like	like	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	hurricane	hurricane	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | BLOCKHEAD |  |  |  |  | on the goat; astride *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on goat=Location |
| 2 | **strike** | past | BLOCKHEAD *not said here* | BLOCKHEAD's heels |  |  |  | into goat's side *result* | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.result»: agent=Agent heel=Patient into side=Result |
| 3 | **go** | past | BLOCKHEAD *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **rattle** | gerund | BLOCKHEAD *not said here* |  |  |  |  | down the high road; like a hurricane | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=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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