---
title: ‘Here comes an egg-shell sailing along!’ said the boys, and they stu… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Here comes an egg-shell sailing along!’ said the boys, and they stuck the Darning-needle into the egg-shell. Who acts: egg shell, boys. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Story About a Darning-needle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, A Story About a Darning-needle, sentence 73

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Here comes an egg-shell sailing along!’ said the boys, and they stuck the Darning-needle into the egg-shell.

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**Who acts:** egg shell, boys · **What happens:** come, sail, say, stick · **To what, where:** egg shell, boys, Darning needle · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Story About a Darning-needle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (egg shell, boys), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg640:51:73
# text = ‘Here comes an egg-shell sailing along!’ said the boys, and they stuck the Darning-needle into the egg-shell.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
3	comes	come	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	ccomp	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	egg	egg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	shell	shell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
8	sailing	sail	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	acl	_	_
9	along	along	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	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	stuck	stick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
20	Darning	darning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	needle	needle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
23	into	into	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
25	egg	egg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	shell	shell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | present |  | a egg shell |  | here |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location shell=Theme |
| 2 | **sail** | gerund | a egg shell *not said here* |  |  |  |  | along *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the boys |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **stick** | past | boys *= boy* | the Darning needle |  | the egg shell |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent needle=Theme into shell=Destination |

<!-- .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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