---
title: And when they got to the river's bank the youngest got upon a stone… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And when they got to the river's bank the youngest got upon a stone to watch for the coming of the boats. Who acts: boats. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack Hannaford, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/13/54/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [English Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/) / [Jack Hannaford](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/13/) / 54

# English Fairy Tales, Jack Hannaford, sentence 54

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And when they got to the river's bank the youngest got upon a stone to watch for the coming of the boats.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** boats · **What happens:** get, watch, come · **To what, where:** youngest

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack Hannaford. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boats), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7439:13:54
# text = And when they got to the river's bank the youngest got upon a stone to watch for the coming of the boats.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	's	's	PART	POS	_	7	case	_	_
9	bank	bank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	youngest	young	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	4	obj	_	_
12	got	get	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl	_	_
13	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	watch	watch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
18	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	coming	come	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	advcl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	boats	boat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | boats *= boat* | the youngest |  |  |  | to the river's bank | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer young=Stimulus |
| 2 | **get** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | upon a stone | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **watch** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **come** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | of the boats | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme of boat=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 53](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/13/53/)
- next →: [sentence 55](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/13/55/)
- ↑ back to [Jack Hannaford](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/13/)