---
title: Their uniform was red and blue, and they shouldered their guns and l… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Their uniform was red and blue, and they shouldered their guns and looked straight in front of them. Who acts: uniform, brothers. 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 2

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Their uniform was red and blue, and they shouldered their guns and looked straight in front of them.

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**Who acts:** uniform, brothers · **What happens:** be, shoulder, look · **To what, where:** guns

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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 (uniform, brothers), 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:pg640:50:2
# text = Their uniform was red and blue, and they shouldered their guns and looked straight in front of them.
1	Their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	uniform	uniform	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	shouldered	shoulder	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	guns	gun	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
15	straight	straight	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nmod	_	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 | **is** | past | brothers's uniform |  |  |  |  | red *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | brothers's uniform *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **shoulder** | past | brothers *= brother* | brothers's guns |  |  |  |  | vn pocket-9.10 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent gun=Theme |
| 4 | **look** | past | brothers *= brother* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | in front of brothers | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent in front=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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