---
title: The dog swam, and the cat sat on its back. — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The dog swam, and the cat sat on its back. Who acts: dog, cat. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 11, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 11, sentence 10

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The dog swam, and the cat sat on its back.

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**Who acts:** dog, cat · **What happens:** swim, sit · **To what, where:** back

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This is a sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dog, cat), 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:pg7128:17:10
# text = The dog swam, and the cat sat on its back.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	swam	swim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swim** | past | the dog |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **sit** | past | the cat |  |  | way's back |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on back=Location |

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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:** «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7128 (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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