---
title: He could see nothing, and somehow, when he thought about it, the voi… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He could see nothing, and somehow, when he thought about it, the voice seemed as if it were part of himself. Who acts: king, voice, world. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 28, 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/pg3027/28/102/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 28, sentence 102

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He could see nothing, and somehow, when he thought about it, the voice seemed as if it were part of himself.

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**Who acts:** king, voice, world · **What happens:** see, think, seem, be · **To what, where:** nothing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 28. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, voice, world), 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:pg3027:28:102
# text = He could see nothing, and somehow, when he thought about it, the voice seemed as if it were part of himself.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	somehow	somehow	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
12	about	about	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
18	as	as	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
19	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
22	part	part	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | could | king | nothing |  |  |  | somehow *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer nothing=Stimulus |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | king |  |  |  |  | about world | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **seem** | past | the voice |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | world |  |  |  |  | as part; of king | tree rules |

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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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