---
title: He could not see what it was, but stooped down and tried to lift it. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He could not see what it was, but stooped down and tried to lift it. Who acts: Prince, way. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 14, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 14, sentence 97

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He could not see what it was, but stooped down and tried to lift it.

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**Who acts:** Prince, way · **What happens:** not see, be, stoop down, try, lift · **To what, where:** way · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince, way), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg2435:1237`): 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:pg2435:14:97
# text = He could not see what it was, but stooped down and tried to lift it.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	ccomp	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	stooped	stoop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	down	down	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	lift	lift	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **see** | could | Prince |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is a** | past | way |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **stoop down** | past | Prince *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **try** | past | Prince *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 5 | **lift** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Prince *not said here* | way |  |  |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |

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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:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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