---
title: The nut-crackers played at leap-frog, and the slate-pencil ran about… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The nut-crackers played at leap-frog, and the slate-pencil ran about the slate; there was such a noise that the canary woke up and began to talk to them, in poetry too! Who acts: nut crackers, slate pencil, noise, canary. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldie
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/50/19/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, sentence 19

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The nut-crackers played at leap-frog, and the slate-pencil ran about the slate; there was such a noise that the canary woke up and began to talk to them, in poetry too!

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**Who acts:** nut crackers, slate pencil, noise, canary · **What happens:** play, run, be, wake up, begin, talk · **To what, where:** noise, crackers, poetry

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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 (nut crackers, slate pencil, noise, canary), 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:pg640:50:19
# text = The nut-crackers played at leap-frog, and the slate-pencil ran about the slate; there was such a noise that the canary woke up and began to talk to them, in poetry too!
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	nut	nut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	crackers	cracker	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	leap	leap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	frog	frog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	slate	slate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	pencil	pencil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
17	about	about	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	slate	slate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	22	expl	_	_
22	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
23	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	25	det:predet	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	noise	noise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
26	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	29	mark	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	canary	canary	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nsubj	_	_
29	woke	wake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	acl:relcl	_	_
30	up	up	ADP	RP	_	29	compound:prt	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
32	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	conj	_	_
33	to	to	PART	TO	_	34	mark	_	_
34	talk	talk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	32	xcomp	_	_
35	to	to	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
36	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	34	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	39	punct	_	_
38	in	in	ADP	IN	_	39	case	_	_
39	poetry	poetry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	obl	_	_
40	too	too	ADV	RB	_	34	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
41	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **play** | past | the nut crackers |  |  |  |  | at leap frog | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **run** | past | the slate pencil |  |  |  |  | about the slate | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme about slate=Trajectory |
| 3 | **be** | past | such noise |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **wake up** | past | the canary | such noise *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent noise=Patient |
| 5 | **begin** | past | the canary *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 6 | **talk** | to-infinitive | the canary *not said here* |  | crackers *= cracker* | poetry |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to they=Co-Agent |

<!-- .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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