---
title: While the sailors stood round staring, thinking that his majesty had… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: While the sailors stood round staring, thinking that his majesty had suddenly gone mad. Who acts: sailors, majesty. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 37, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 37, sentence 63

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While the sailors stood round staring, thinking that his majesty had suddenly gone mad.

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**Who acts:** sailors, majesty · **What happens:** stand, stare, think, go · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 37. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sailors, majesty), 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:pg3027:37:63
# text = While the sailors stood round staring, thinking that his majesty had suddenly gone mad.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	sailors	sailor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	round	round	ADP	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
6	staring	stare	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	majesty	majesty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	gone	go	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	ccomp	_	_
15	mad	mad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | the sailors |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **stare** | gerund | the sailors *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | gerund | the sailors *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 4 | **go** | past · perfect | king's majesty |  |  |  |  | mad, suddenly *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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