---
title: A thousand names were proposed and rejected for a thousand silly rea… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A thousand names were proposed and rejected for a thousand silly reasons. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 28, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/28/22/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Orange Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/) / [Opening, part 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/28/) / 22

# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 28, sentence 22

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A thousand names were proposed and rejected for a thousand silly reasons.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** propose, reject · **To what, where:** thousand names

<!-- .vabout -->
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: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3027:28:22
# text = A thousand names were proposed and rejected for a thousand silly reasons.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	names	name	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	proposed	propose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	rejected	reject	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	_
8	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
11	silly	silly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	reasons	reason	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **propose** | past · passive |  | a thousand names |  |  |  |  | vn reflexive\_appearance-48.1.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **reject** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | for thousand silly reasons | vn reject-77.2-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/28/21/)
- next →: [sentence 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/28/23/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/28/)