---
title: Almost fainting with joy he gazed after them, and then sank back tre… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Almost fainting with joy he gazed after them, and then sank back trembling on the ground. Who acts: he. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 29, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 29, sentence 1

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Almost fainting with joy he gazed after them, and then sank back trembling on the ground.

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**Who acts:** he · **What happens:** faint, gaze, sink back, tremble · **To what, where:** ground

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (he), 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:pg3027:29:1
# text = Almost fainting with joy he gazed after them, and then sank back trembling on the ground.
1	Almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	fainting	faint	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	joy	joy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	gazed	gaze	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	after	after	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	12	advmod	_	_
12	sank	sink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
13	back	back	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	trembling	tremble	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **faint** | gerund | he *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with joy; almost *property* | vn change\_bodily\_state-40.8.4 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **gaze** | past | he |  |  |  | after them *= they* |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **sink back** | past | he *not said here* |  |  |  | then |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **tremble** | gerund | he *not said here* |  |  | the ground |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on ground=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 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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