---
title: He was about to speak the word, when he was stayed by a sudden thoug… — The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault · tree and pragmatics
description: He was about to speak the word, when he was stayed by a sudden thought. Who acts: mischance, sudden thought. A sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Towards Her"], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, Towards Her"\], sentence 19

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He was about to speak the word, when he was stayed by a sudden thought.

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**Who acts:** mischance, sudden thought · **What happens:** be, speak, stay · **To what, where:** word, mischance · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Towards Her"\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mischance, sudden thought), 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:pg29021:15:19
# text = He was about to speak the word, when he was stayed by a sudden thought.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	about	about	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	stayed	stay	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	acl:relcl	_	_
13	by	by	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	sudden	sudden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	thought	thought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | mischance |  |  |  |  | about *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | to-infinitive | mischance *not said here* | the word |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **stay** | past · passive | a sudden thought | mischance |  |  |  |  | vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme subject=Location |

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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 Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Project Gutenberg book 29021 (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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