---
title: But the wind caught him up, and whirled him through the air so quick… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the wind caught him up, and whirled him through the air so quickly that Medio Pollito could scarcely breathe, and his heart beat against his side till he thought it would break. Who acts: wind, Medio, heart. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Half-chick, with its dependency
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Half-chick, sentence 69

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the wind caught him up, and whirled him through the air so quickly that Medio Pollito could scarcely breathe, and his heart beat against his side till he thought it would break.

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**Who acts:** wind, Medio, heart · **What happens:** catch up, whirl, breathe, beat, think, break · **To what, where:** Medio, air, side · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Half-chick. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wind, Medio, heart), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg7277:363`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg7277:6:69
# text = But the wind caught him up, and whirled him through the air so quickly that Medio Pollito could scarcely breathe, and his heart beat against his side till he thought it would break.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	up	up	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	whirled	whirl	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	through	through	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
14	so	so	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
16	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
17	Medio	Medio	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
18	Pollito	Pollito	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	flat	_	_
19	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	breathe	breathe	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	advcl	_	_
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	_
26	beat	beat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
27	against	against	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	29	nmod:poss	_	_
29	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	_
30	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	32	mark	_	_
31	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	32	nsubj	_	_
32	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	advcl	_	_
33	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	35	nsubj	_	_
34	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	35	aux	_	_
35	break	break	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	32	ccomp	_	_
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **catch up** | past | the wind | Medio |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 2 | **whirl** | past | the wind *not said here* | Medio |  | the air |  | quickly *property* | vn coil-9.6 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent he=Theme through air=Destination |
| 3 | **breathe** | could | Medio |  |  |  |  | scarcely *property* | vn breathe-40.1.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **beat** | past | Medio's heart |  |  | Medio's side |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme against side=Location |
| 5 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Medio |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 6 | **break** | would | heart |  |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |

<!-- .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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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