---
title: Instantly two pretty lads sprang out of the sack. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Instantly two pretty lads sprang out of the sack. Who acts: two pretty lads. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Two in a Sack, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Two in a Sack, sentence 13

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Instantly two pretty lads sprang out of the sack.

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**Who acts:** two pretty lads · **What happens:** spring out · **To what, where:** sack

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Two in a Sack. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (two pretty lads), 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:pg641:17:13
# text = Instantly two pretty lads sprang out of the sack.
1	Instantly	instantly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	nummod	_	_
3	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	lads	lad	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	sprang	spring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	out	out	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	sack	sack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spring out** | past | two pretty lads | the sack |  |  |  | instantly *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location sack=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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