---
title: They even owed something to their landlord, who kept them as hostage… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They even owed something to their landlord, who kept them as hostages till they could pay their debts. Who acts: merrymakers, landlord. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Blackbird, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Blackbird, sentence 18

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They even owed something to their landlord, who kept them as hostages till they could pay their debts.

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**Who acts:** merrymakers, landlord · **What happens:** owe, keep, pay · **To what, where:** something, landlord, merrymakers, debts

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Blackbird. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (merrymakers, landlord), 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:pg7277:21:18
# text = They even owed something to their landlord, who kept them as hostages till they could pay their debts.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	even	even	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	owed	owe	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	3	obj	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	landlord	landlord	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
11	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	as	as	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	hostages	hostage	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
14	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	pay	pay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	advcl	_	_
18	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	debts	debt	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **owe** | past | merrymakers *= merrymaker* | something |  |  |  | to merrymakers's landlord *goal* | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP PP.goal»: agent=Agent something=Theme to landlord=Goal |
| 2 | **keep** | past | merrymakers's landlord | merrymakers *= merrymaker* |  |  |  | as hostages | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 3 | **pay** | could | merrymakers *= merrymaker* | merrymakers's debts |  |  |  |  | vn pay-68-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent debt=Asset |

<!-- .note -->
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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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