---
title: It rattled the millstone against the eaves of the house, and the ste… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It rattled the millstone against the eaves of the house, and the stepmother said: “It thunders.” Who acts: song, stepmother. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Rose-tree, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Rose-tree, sentence 56

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It rattled the millstone against the eaves of the house, and the stepmother said: “It thunders.”

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**Who acts:** song, stepmother · **What happens:** rattle, say, thunder · **To what, where:** millstone · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Rose-tree. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (song, stepmother), 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:pg7439:8:56
# text = It rattled the millstone against the eaves of the house, and the stepmother said: “It thunders.”
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	rattled	rattle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	millstone	millstone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	against	against	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	eaves	eave	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
17	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	thunders	thunder	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **rattle** | past | song | the millstone |  |  |  | against the eaves of the house | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent millstone=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the stepmother |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **thunder** *in a quote* | present | song |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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