---
title: 'Dear mother,' said Lyman, who had come in unseen, and was kneeling… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'Dear mother,' said Lyman, who had come in unseen, and was kneeling in front of the fire. ' Who acts: Dear mother, Lyman. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 36, 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/pg3027/36/51/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 36, sentence 51

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'Dear mother,' said Lyman, who had come in unseen, and was kneeling in front of the fire. '

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**Who acts:** Dear mother, Lyman · **What happens:** say, come, kneel · **To what, where:** unseen, front · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 36. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dear mother, Lyman), 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:pg3027:36:51
# text = 'Dear mother,' said Lyman, who had come in unseen, and was kneeling in front of the fire. '
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	Lyman	Lyman	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	come	come	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	ccomp	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	unseen	unseen	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	kneeling	kneel	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	ccomp	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
24	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Dear mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **come** | past · perfect | Lyman |  |  | unseen |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in unseen=Location |
| 3 | **kneel** | past · progressive |  |  |  | front of the fire |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in front=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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