---
title: That was not very cheerful; and he was just going out again when his… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: That was not very cheerful; and he was just going out again when his eye fell on a shelf of books. Who acts: That, he, eye. 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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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 39, sentence 3

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That was not very cheerful; and he was just going out again when his eye fell on a shelf of books.

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**Who acts:** That, he, eye · **What happens:** not be, go out, fall · **To what, where:** shelf

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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 (That, he, eye), 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:pg3027:39:3
# text = That was not very cheerful; and he was just going out again when his eye fell on a shelf of books.
1	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	cheerful	cheerful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	just	just	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	advcl	_	_
12	out	out	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	again	again	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
14	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	eye	eye	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
18	on	on	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	shelf	shelf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	books	book	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | That |  |  |  |  | cheerful *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **go out** | past · progressive | he |  |  |  | again |  | vn interact-36.6 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **fall** | past | his eye |  |  | a shelf of books |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on shelf=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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