---
title: So they went and told the king what they had seen. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So they went and told the king what they had seen. Who acts: watchmen. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/20/56/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 20, sentence 56

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So they went and told the king what they had seen.

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**Who acts:** watchmen · **What happens:** go, tell, see · **To what, where:** king · **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 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (watchmen), 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:pg2435:20:56
# text = So they went and told the king what they had seen.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	11	obj	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | watchmen *= watchman* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | watchmen *= watchman* *not said here* |  | the king |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent king=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **see** | past · perfect | watchmen *= watchman* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus |

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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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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