---
title: The castle was situated in the midst of a small island surrounded by… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The castle was situated in the midst of a small island surrounded by a moat thirty feet deep and twenty feet wide, over which lay a drawbridge. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack the Giant-killer, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Jack the Giant-killer, sentence 100

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The castle was situated in the midst of a small island surrounded by a moat thirty feet deep and twenty feet wide, over which lay a drawbridge.

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**What happens:** situate, surround, lie · **To what, where:** castle, midst, small island, drawbridge

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack the Giant-killer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg7439:23:100
# text = The castle was situated in the midst of a small island surrounded by a moat thirty feet deep and twenty feet wide, over which lay a drawbridge.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	situated	situate	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	midst	midst	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	island	island	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
12	surrounded	surround	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl	_	_
13	by	by	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	moat	moat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl:agent	_	_
16	thirty	thirty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	_
17	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl:unmarked	_	_
18	deep	deep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	obl:agent	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	21	nummod	_	_
21	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl:unmarked	_	_
22	wide	wide	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
24	over	over	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	26	nsubj	_	_
26	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	drawbridge	drawbridge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **situate** | past · passive |  | the castle |  | the midst of a small island |  |  | vn put-9.1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme in midst=Destination |
| 2 | **surround** | participle |  | a small island *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **lie** | past |  | a drawbridge |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location drawbridge=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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