---
title: “Threshing with an iron flail, threshing with an iron flail” (_gruff… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Threshing with an iron flail, threshing with an iron flail” (_gruffly_). A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Strange Visitor, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Strange Visitor, sentence 40

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“Threshing with an iron flail, threshing with an iron flail” (\_gruffly\_).

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**What happens:** thresh

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Strange Visitor. 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:pg7439:38:40
# text = “Threshing with an iron flail, threshing with an iron flail” (_gruffly_).
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Threshing	thresh	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	iron	iron	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	flail	flail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	threshing	thresh	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	conj	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	iron	iron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	flail	flail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
14	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	gruffly	gruffly	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **thresh** *in a quote* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | with a iron flail; gruffly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **thresh** *in a quote* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | with a iron flail | tree rules |

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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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