---
title: Up and down swam the fish, then he made the most dreadful contortion… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Up and down swam the fish, then he made the most dreadful contortions, and became suddenly quite still. Who acts: fish. 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 65

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Up and down swam the fish, then he made the most dreadful contortions, and became suddenly quite still.

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**Who acts:** fish · **What happens:** swim, make, become · **To what, where:** fish, dreadful contortions

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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 (fish), 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:pg640:50:65
# text = Up and down swam the fish, then he made the most dreadful contortions, and became suddenly quite still.
1	Up	up	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
3	down	down	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	swam	swim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	10	advmod	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	13	advmod	_	_
13	dreadful	dreadful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	contortions	contortion	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
18	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
19	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	still	still	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swim** | past |  | the fish |  |  |  | down *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location fish=Theme |
| 2 | **make** | past | fish | the dreadful contortions |  |  | then |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent contortion=Product |
| 3 | **become** | past |  |  |  |  | still | suddenly *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |

<!-- .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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