---
title: (It was by them looking at it and handing it from one hand to the ot… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: (It was by them looking at it and handing it from one hand to the other that they dropped the little box to the bottom of the sea.) Who acts: quarrelling, mice. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack and His Golden Snuff-box, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every c
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/20/94/)

<!-- 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 and His Golden Snuff-box](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/20/) / 94

# English Fairy Tales, Jack and His Golden Snuff-box, sentence 94

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
(It was by them looking at it and handing it from one hand to the other that they dropped the little box to the bottom of the sea.)

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** quarrelling, mice · **What happens:** look, hand, drop · **To what, where:** quarrelling, one hand, little box, bottom

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack and His Golden Snuff-box. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (quarrelling, mice), 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:pg7439:20:94
# text = (It was by them looking at it and handing it from one hand to the other that they dropped the little box to the bottom of the sea.)
1	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	handing	hand	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	from	from	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	obl	_	_
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	dropped	drop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	box	box	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
24	to	to	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	bottom	bottom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	_
27	of	of	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** | past · progressive | quarrelling |  |  |  |  | at water | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at it=Theme |
| 2 | **hand** | gerund | quarrelling *not said here* | quarrelling |  | one hand |  | to the other | vn send-11.1-1 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme from hand=Initial\_Location to other=Destination |
| 3 | **drop** | past | mice *= mouse* | the little box |  | the bottom of the sea |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent box=Theme to bottom=Destination |

<!-- .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 93](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/20/93/)
- next →: [sentence 95](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/20/95/)
- ↑ back to [Jack and His Golden Snuff-box](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/20/)