---
title: He would lay down his great hand flat on the grass, and challenge th… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He would lay down his great hand flat on the grass, and challenge the tallest of them to clamber upon it, and straddle from finger to finger. Who acts: Earth. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pygmies., part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Pygmies., part 1, sentence 56

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He would lay down his great hand flat on the grass, and challenge the tallest of them to clamber upon it, and straddle from finger to finger.

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**Who acts:** Earth · **What happens:** lay down, challenge, clamber · **To what, where:** great hand, grass, tallest

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pygmies., part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Earth), 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:pg976:7:56
# text = He would lay down his great hand flat on the grass, and challenge the tallest of them to clamber upon it, and straddle from finger to finger.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	lay	lay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	down	down	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
6	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
8	flat	flat	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	challenge	challenge	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	tallest	tall	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	14	obj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nmod	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	clamber	clamber	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	_
21	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	straddle	straddle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
26	from	from	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	finger	finger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	_
28	to	to	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
29	finger	finger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay down** | would | Earth | Earth's great hand |  | the grass |  | straddle from finger to finger *obl*; flat *property* | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent hand=Theme on grass=Destination |
| 2 | **challenge** | infinitive | Earth *not said here* | the tallest of Pygmies |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **clamber** | to-infinitive | Earth *not said here* |  |  | grass |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon it=Trajectory |

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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:** «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Project Gutenberg book 976 (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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