---
title: The slightest stumble and they would fall, and be wetted from head t… — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The slightest stumble and they would fall, and be wetted from head to foot. Who acts: slightest stumble. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 20, sentence 42

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The slightest stumble and they would fall, and be wetted from head to foot.

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**Who acts:** slightest stumble · **What happens:** fall, wett · **To what, where:** head

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This is a sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (slightest stumble), 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:pg7128:26:42
# text = The slightest stumble and they would fall, and be wetted from head to foot.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	slightest	slight	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	3	amod	_	_
3	stumble	stumble	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	wetted	wett	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	parataxis	_	_
12	from	from	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	foot	foot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fall** | would | the slightest stumble |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **wett** | infinitive · passive |  |  |  | head |  | to foot | tree rules |

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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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