---
title: He happened to be reading a book many hundreds of years old, which t… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He happened to be reading a book many hundreds of years old, which told of remedies for all kinds of diseases. Who acts: Gilguerillo, many hundreds. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 38, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 38, sentence 43

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He happened to be reading a book many hundreds of years old, which told of remedies for all kinds of diseases.

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**Who acts:** Gilguerillo, many hundreds · **What happens:** happen, read, tell · **To what, where:** book · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 38. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Gilguerillo, many hundreds), 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:pg3027:38:43
# text = He happened to be reading a book many hundreds of years old, which told of remedies for all kinds of diseases.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux	_	_
5	reading	read	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	book	book	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	hundreds	hundred	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	_
12	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
15	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	remedies	remedy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	_
18	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	20	det	_	_
20	kinds	kind	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nmod	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	diseases	disease	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | past | Gilguerillo |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **read** | to-infinitive · progressive | Gilguerillo *not said here* | a book |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent book=Recipient hundred=Topic |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | many hundreds of years |  |  |  |  | of remedies for all kinds of diseases | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «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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