---
title: 'There was been treachery at work,' he exclaimed, while the prince l… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'There was been treachery at work,' he exclaimed, while the prince leant, dumb with horror, against the doorpost. Who acts: treachery. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 23, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 23, sentence 59

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'There was been treachery at work,' he exclaimed, while the prince leant, dumb with horror, against the doorpost.

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**Who acts:** treachery · **What happens:** be, exclaim · **To what, where:** treachery, work, prince leant

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, 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 (treachery), 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:pg3027:23:59
# text = 'There was been treachery at work,' he exclaimed, while the prince leant, dumb with horror, against the doorpost.
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	4	expl	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	cop	_	_
5	treachery	treachery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	exclaimed	exclaim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	leant	leant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
18	dumb	dumb	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
19	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	horror	horror	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
22	against	against	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	doorpost	doorpost	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | participle |  | treachery |  | work |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **exclaim** *speech: express* | past | treachery | the prince leant |  |  |  | against the doorpost | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent leant=Topic |

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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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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