---
title: They sought her east, they sought her west, They sought her up and d… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They sought her east, they sought her west, They sought her up and down, And woe were the hearts of those brethren, For she was not to be found. Who acts: brothers, woe. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Childe Rowland, 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/pg7439/24/4/)

<!-- 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/) / [Childe Rowland](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/24/) / 4

# English Fairy Tales, Childe Rowland, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They sought her east, they sought her west, They sought her up and down, And woe were the hearts of those brethren, For she was not to be found.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** brothers, woe · **What happens:** seek, seek up, be, not find · **To what, where:** east, Burd, hearts

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Childe Rowland. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brothers, woe), 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:pg7439:24:4
# text = They sought her east, they sought her west, They sought her up and down, And woe were the hearts of those brethren, For she was not to be found.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sought	seek	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	east	east	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	sought	seek	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
8	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	_
9	west	west	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	sought	seek	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
13	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	up	up	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	down	down	ADV	RB	_	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
19	woe	woe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
20	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	hearts	heart	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	25	det	_	_
25	brethren	brethren	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	33	punct	_	_
27	For	for	SCONJ	IN	_	33	mark	_	_
28	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	33	nsubj	_	_
29	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	33	aux:pass	_	_
30	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	33	advmod	_	_
31	to	to	PART	TO	_	33	mark	_	_
32	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	33	aux:pass	_	_
33	found	find	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seek** | past | brothers *= brother* | Burd's east |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent east=Theme |
| 2 | **seek** | past | brothers *= brother* | Burd |  |  |  | west *property* | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme |
| 3 | **seek up** | past | brothers *= brother* | Burd |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme |
| 4 | **is a** | past | woe | the hearts |  |  |  | of that brethren | tree rules |
| 5 | **not** **find** | past · passive |  | Burd |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: subject=Topic |

<!-- .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 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/24/3/)
- next →: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/24/5/)
- ↑ back to [Childe Rowland](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/24/)