---
title: The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the two crept back into… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the two crept back into the sack. Who acts: words, two. 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 51

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The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the two crept back into the sack.

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**Who acts:** words, two · **What happens:** be, creep back · **To what, where:** mouth, 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 (words, two), 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:pg641:17:51
# text = The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the two crept back into the sack.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
4	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
5	out	out	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nsubj	_	_
13	crept	creep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
14	back	back	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	into	into	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	sack	sack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the words |  |  | man's mouth |  | hardly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **creep back** | past | the two |  |  | the sack |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme into sack=Destination |

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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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