---
title: There they both stood, stretching themselves as high as they could,… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There they both stood, stretching themselves as high as they could, and holding each other tightly, so that they might not fall down. Who acts: frogs. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Two Frogs, 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/pg641/14/12/)

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Two Frogs, sentence 12

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There they both stood, stretching themselves as high as they could, and holding each other tightly, so that they might not fall down.

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**Who acts:** frogs · **What happens:** stand, stretch, hold, not fall down · **To what, where:** frogs, each

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Two Frogs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (frogs), 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:pg641:14:12
# text = There they both stood, stretching themselves as high as they could, and holding each other tightly, so that they might not fall down.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	4	expl	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	both	both	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	stretching	stretch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
7	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	6	obj	_	_
8	as	as	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	high	high	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	xcomp	_	_
10	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	_
16	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	15	obj	_	_
17	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	fixed	_	_
18	tightly	tightly	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
20	so	so	SCONJ	IN	ExtPos=SCONJ	25	mark	_	_
21	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	fixed	_	_
22	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
23	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
24	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
25	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
26	down	down	ADP	RP	_	25	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | frogs *= frog* |  |  | there |  | both *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **stretch** | gerund | frogs *= frog* *not said here* | frogs *= frog* |  |  |  | high *property* | vn bend-45.2 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent themselves=Patient |
| 3 | **hold** | gerund | frogs *= frog* *not said here* | each |  |  |  | tightly *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent each=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **fall down** | might | frogs *= frog* |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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