---
title: He was about to mount on his back, when the animal spoke again: — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He was about to mount on his back, when the animal spoke again: Who acts: king, animal. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 31, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 31, sentence 123

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He was about to mount on his back, when the animal spoke again:

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**Who acts:** king, animal · **What happens:** be, mount, speak · **To what, where:** back · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, animal), 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:pg3027:31:123
# text = He was about to mount on his back, when the animal spoke again:
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	mount	mount	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
14	again	again	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	:	:	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 | king |  |  |  |  | about *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **mount** | to-infinitive | king *not said here* |  |  | king's back |  |  | vn put-9.1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent on back=Destination |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | the animal |  |  |  | again |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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