---
title: But at last the giant was through, and it wasn't long before he was… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: But at last the giant was through, and it wasn't long before he was like to catch them up. Who acts: giant, it. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Nix Nought Nothing, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Nix Nought Nothing, sentence 50

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But at last the giant was through, and it wasn't long before he was like to catch them up.

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**Who acts:** giant, it · **What happens:** be, catch up · **To what, where:** lovers

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Nix Nought Nothing. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (giant, it), 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:pg7439:12:50
# text = But at last the giant was through, and it wasn't long before he was like to catch them up.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
2	at	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	giant	giant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
7	through	through	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	17	advmod	_	_
14	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	like	like	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
20	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	up	up	ADP	RP	_	19	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the giant |  |  |  |  | last *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | it |  |  |  |  | like, long *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **catch up** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  | lovers *= lover* |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |

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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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