---
title: The tin-soldiers rattled in their box, for they wanted to be out too… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The tin-soldiers rattled in their box, for they wanted to be out too, but they could not raise the lid. Who acts: tin soldiers, soldiers. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/50/18/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, sentence 18

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The tin-soldiers rattled in their box, for they wanted to be out too, but they could not raise the lid.

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**Who acts:** tin soldiers, soldiers · **What happens:** rattle, want, be, not raise · **To what, where:** box, lid

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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 (tin soldiers, soldiers), 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:pg640:50:18
# text = The tin-soldiers rattled in their box, for they wanted to be out too, but they could not raise the lid.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	tin	tin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	soldiers	soldier	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	rattled	rattle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	box	box	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	cop	_	_
15	out	out	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
16	too	too	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
20	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
21	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
22	raise	raise	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	conj	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	lid	lid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **rattle** | participle | the tin soldiers |  |  | soldiers's box |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in box=Location |
| 2 | **want** | past | soldiers *= soldier* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 3 | **is** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | out *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **raise** | could | soldiers *= soldier* | the lid |  |  |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lid=Theme |

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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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