---
title: At length a soldier, who was a careless sort of fellow, offered hims… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At length a soldier, who was a careless sort of fellow, offered himself for the service, and cautiously lowered himself into the darkness. Who acts: soldier. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 39, 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/pg3027/39/119/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 39, sentence 119

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At length a soldier, who was a careless sort of fellow, offered himself for the service, and cautiously lowered himself into the darkness.

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**Who acts:** soldier · **What happens:** be, offer, lower · **To what, where:** careless sort, man, length, darkness

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 39. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (soldier), 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:pg3027:39:119
# text = At length a soldier, who was a careless sort of fellow, offered himself for the service, and cautiously lowered himself into the darkness.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	soldier	soldier	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	careless	careless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	sort	sort	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	appos	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	fellow	fellow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
14	offered	offer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	14	obj	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	service	service	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	cautiously	cautiously	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	lowered	lower	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
23	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	22	obj	_	_
24	into	into	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	darkness	darkness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | a soldier | a careless sort |  |  |  | of fellow | tree rules |
| 2 | **offer** | past |  | man |  | length |  | for the service *goal* | vn future\_having-13.3 «NP V NP PP.goal»: agent=Agent himself=Theme for service=Goal |
| 3 | **lower** | past |  | man |  | the darkness |  | cautiously *property* | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent himself=Theme into darkness=Destination |

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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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