---
title: He lowered his head and rushed forward amidst a storm of blows, whic… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He lowered his head and rushed forward amidst a storm of blows, which he returned with his fists. Who acts: soldier, blows. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Little Soldier, sentence 37

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He lowered his head and rushed forward amidst a storm of blows, which he returned with his fists.

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**Who acts:** soldier, blows · **What happens:** lower, rush, return, storm · **To what, where:** head, blows

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (soldier, blows), 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:pg7277:22:37
# text = He lowered his head and rushed forward amidst a storm of blows, which he returned with his fists.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	lowered	lower	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	rushed	rush	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
7	forward	forward	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
8	amidst	amidst	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	storm	storm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	blows	blow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	obj	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	fists	fist	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lower** | past | soldier | soldier's head |  |  |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Theme |
| 2 | **rush** | past | soldier *not said here* |  |  |  |  | amidst a storm of blows; forward *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **return** | past | soldier | blows |  |  |  | with soldier's fists | vn send-11.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent which=Theme |
| 4 | **storm** |  | blows |  |  |  |  |  | nom storm «phenomenon intransitive»: of=agent |

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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 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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