---
title: ‘Swan, hold fast,’ said Peter, and the black man was added to their… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Swan, hold fast,’ said Peter, and the black man was added to their number. Who acts: Swan, Peter. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Swan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Magic Swan, sentence 36

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‘Swan, hold fast,’ said Peter, and the black man was added to their number.

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**Who acts:** Swan, Peter · **What happens:** hold, say, add · **To what, where:** black man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Swan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Swan, Peter), 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:pg7277:23:36
# text = ‘Swan, hold fast,’ said Peter, and the black man was added to their number.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Swan	swan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
5	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	Peter	Peter	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	added	add	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	number	number	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | infinitive | Swan |  |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Peter |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **add** *speech: assert* | past · passive |  | the black man |  |  |  | to captives's number | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: subject=Patient to number=Co-Patient |

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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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