---
title: Left alone, Laufer sat and stared at the heap of shining silk before… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Left alone, Laufer sat and stared at the heap of shining silk before her. Who acts: Laufer, heap. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 23, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 23, sentence 71

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Left alone, Laufer sat and stared at the heap of shining silk before her.

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**Who acts:** Laufer, heap · **What happens:** leave, sit, stare, shine · **To what, where:** silk

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Laufer, heap), 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:pg2435:23:71
# text = Left alone, Laufer sat and stared at the heap of shining silk before her.
1	Left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	advcl	_	_
2	alone	alone	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
4	Laufer	Laufer	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	stared	stare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	heap	heap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
12	shining	shine	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	acl	_	_
13	silk	silk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
14	before	before	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **leave** | participle | Laufer *not said here* |  |  |  |  | alone *property* | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **sit** | past | Laufer |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **stare** | past | Laufer *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at the heap | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at heap=Theme |
| 4 | **shine** | gerund | the heap *not said here* | silk |  |  | before Laufer |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent silk=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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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