---
title: They fought, and they fought, and they fought, till Childe Rowland b… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They fought, and they fought, and they fought, till Childe Rowland beat the King of Elfland down on to his knees, and caused him to yield and beg for mercy. Who acts: arches, Childe. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Childe Rowland, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/24/72/)

<!-- 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/) / 72

# English Fairy Tales, Childe Rowland, sentence 72

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They fought, and they fought, and they fought, till Childe Rowland beat the King of Elfland down on to his knees, and caused him to yield and beg for mercy.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** arches, Childe · **What happens:** fight, beat, cause, yield, beg · **To what, where:** King, Childe

<!-- .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 (arches, Childe), 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:pg7439:24:72
# text = They fought, and they fought, and they fought, till Childe Rowland beat the King of Elfland down on to his knees, and caused him to yield and beg for mercy.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	fought	fight	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	fought	fight	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	fought	fight	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	Childe	Childe	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
14	Rowland	Rowland	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	flat	_	_
15	beat	beat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	Elfland	Elfland	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	_
20	down	down	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	on	on	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
22	to	to	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	knees	knee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	caused	cause	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
28	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	27	obj	_	_
29	to	to	PART	TO	_	30	mark	_	_
30	yield	yield	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	27	xcomp	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
32	beg	beg	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	30	conj	_	_
33	for	for	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
34	mercy	mercy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fight** | past | arches *= arch* |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **fight** | past | arches *= arch* |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **fight** | past | arches *= arch* |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **beat** | past | Childe | the King of Elfland |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location king=Theme |
| 5 | **cause** | past |  | Childe |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **yield** | to-infinitive | Childe *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn acquiesce-95.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 7 | **beg** *speech: request* | infinitive | Childe *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for mercy | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V PP.Topic»: agent=Agent for mercy=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 71](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/24/71/)
- next →: [sentence 73](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/24/73/)
- ↑ back to [Childe Rowland](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/24/)