---
title: “I started to go upstairs, and there was a man up there threshing, a… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “I started to go upstairs, and there was a man up there threshing, and he knocked me down with his flail.” Who acts: Jack, man. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, How Jack Went to Seek His Fortune, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, How Jack Went to Seek His Fortune, sentence 45

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“I started to go upstairs, and there was a man up there threshing, and he knocked me down with his flail.”

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**Who acts:** Jack, man · **What happens:** start, go, be, knock down · **To what, where:** Jack

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, How Jack Went to Seek His Fortune. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Jack, man), 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:pg7439:10:45
# text = “I started to go upstairs, and there was a man up there threshing, and he knocked me down with his flail.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	upstairs	upstairs	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	10	expl	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
13	up	up	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
14	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	15	advmod	_	_
15	threshing	thresh	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	knocked	knock	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
20	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	down	down	ADP	RP	_	19	compound:prt	_	_
22	with	with	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	flail	flail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **start** *in a quote* | past | Jack |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **go** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Jack *not said here* |  |  |  |  | upstairs *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | past | a man |  |  | there |  | thresh *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **knock down** *in a quote* | past | man | Jack |  |  |  | with man's flail | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent i=Patient with flail=Instrument |

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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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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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