---
title: But the brothers rode on so fast that dust and sparks flew all aroun… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the brothers rode on so fast that dust and sparks flew all around, and they reached the gate of the town a good hour before Blockhead-Hans. Who acts: brothers, dust. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, sentence 136

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the brothers rode on so fast that dust and sparks flew all around, and they reached the gate of the town a good hour before Blockhead-Hans.

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**Who acts:** brothers, dust · **What happens:** ride on, fly, reach · **To what, where:** gate

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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 (brothers, dust), 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:pg640:50:136
# text = But the brothers rode on so fast that dust and sparks flew all around, and they reached the gate of the town a good hour before Blockhead-Hans.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	rode	ride	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	dust	dust	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	sparks	spark	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	conj	_	_
12	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
13	all	all	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	around	around	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	gate	gate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl:unmarked	_	_
27	before	before	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
28	Blockhead	Blockhead	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	30	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	28	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	Hans	Hans	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ride on** | past | the brothers |  |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **fly** | past | dust and sparks |  |  |  |  | around *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **reach** | past | brothers *= brother* | the gate of the town |  |  | before Blockhead Hans; hour |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent gate=Theme |

<!-- .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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