---
title: From the time he was a little boy he had been told that on his sixte… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: From the time he was a little boy he had been told that on his sixteenth birthday he must go out into the world and serve his apprenticeship. Who acts: couple. 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 85

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From the time he was a little boy he had been told that on his sixteenth birthday he must go out into the world and serve his apprenticeship.

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**Who acts:** couple · **What happens:** be, tell, go out, serve · **To what, where:** little boy, couple, sixteenth birthday, apprenticeship · **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 (couple), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg3027:2511`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3027:38:85
# text = From the time he was a little boy he had been told that on his sixteenth birthday he must go out into the world and serve his apprenticeship.
1	From	from	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	acl:relcl	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
13	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
16	sixteenth	sixteenth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumType=Ord	17	amod	_	_
17	birthday	birthday	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
21	out	out	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
22	into	into	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	serve	serve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	conj	_	_
27	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
28	apprenticeship	apprenticeship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	_
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | couple | a little boy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · perfect · passive |  | couple |  |  | time |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **go out** | must | couple |  |  | couple's sixteenth birthday |  | into the world; out *property* | vn interact-36.6 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **serve** | infinitive | couple *not said here* | couple's apprenticeship |  |  |  |  | vn masquerade-29.6-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent apprenticeship=Attribute |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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