---
title: No sooner had he touched her than she shrivelled up and shrivelled u… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: No sooner had he touched her than she shrivelled up and shrivelled up, till she became a huge ugly toad, with bold staring eyes and a horrible hiss. Who acts: Childe, queen. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh, with its dependency tree and the p
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh, sentence 48

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No sooner had he touched her than she shrivelled up and shrivelled up, till she became a huge ugly toad, with bold staring eyes and a horrible hiss.

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**Who acts:** Childe, queen · **What happens:** touch, shrivell up, become · **To what, where:** queen, huge ugly toad

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Childe, queen), 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:pg7439:39:48
# text = No sooner had he touched her than she shrivelled up and shrivelled up, till she became a huge ugly toad, with bold staring eyes and a horrible hiss.
1	No	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	2	det	_	_
2	sooner	soon	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	5	advmod	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	shrivelled	shrivell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
10	up	up	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	shrivelled	shrivell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	conj	_	_
13	up	up	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
19	huge	huge	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
20	ugly	ugly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	toad	toad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
23	with	with	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
24	bold	bold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
25	staring	staring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	compound	_	_
26	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
28	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
29	horrible	horrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	hiss	hiss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **touch** | past | Childe | queen |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme she=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **shrivell up** | past | queen |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **shrivell up** | participle | queen *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **become** | past | queen | a huge ugly toad |  |  |  | with bold staring eyes and a horrible hiss | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |

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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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