---
title: And the gentleman went on his way, but he hadn't gone far when the c… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And the gentleman went on his way, but he hadn't gone far when the cow tumbled off the roof, and hung by the string tied round her neck, and it strangled her. Who acts: gentleman, cow, string. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Sillies, with its dependency tree and the p
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Three Sillies, sentence 33

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And the gentleman went on his way, but he hadn't gone far when the cow tumbled off the roof, and hung by the string tied round her neck, and it strangled her.

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**Who acts:** gentleman, cow, string · **What happens:** go, not go, tumble, hang, tie, strangle · **To what, where:** way, roof, string, cow

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Three Sillies. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gentleman, cow, string), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg7439:227`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg7439:7:33
# text = And the gentleman went on his way, but he hadn't gone far when the cow tumbled off the roof, and hung by the string tied round her neck, and it strangled her.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	gone	go	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
14	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	13	advmod	_	_
15	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	tumbled	tumble	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
19	off	off	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	roof	roof	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	hung	hang	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	conj	_	_
25	by	by	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	string	string	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
28	tied	tie	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	27	acl	_	_
29	round	round	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	her	she	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	31	nmod:poss	_	_
31	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	_
32	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	35	punct	_	_
33	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	35	cc	_	_
34	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	35	nsubj	_	_
35	strangled	strangle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	conj	_	_
36	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	35	obj	_	_
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | the gentleman |  |  | gentleman's way |  |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on way=Location |
| 2 | **not** **go** | past · perfect | gentleman |  |  |  |  | far *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **tumble** | past | the cow |  |  | the roof |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme off roof=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **hang** | past | the cow *not said here* |  |  |  |  | by the string | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent by string=Location |
| 5 | **tie** | participle |  | the string *not said here* |  |  |  | round cow's neck | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 6 | **strangle** | past | string | cow |  |  |  |  | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Patient |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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