---
title: I have been there constantly for several months, but last night a st… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I have been there constantly for several months, but last night a strange thing happened. Who acts: I, strange thing. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 10, sentence 59

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I have been there constantly for several months, but last night a strange thing happened.

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**Who acts:** I, strange thing · **What happens:** be, happen

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, strange thing), 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:pg3282:10:59
# text = I have been there constantly for several months, but last night a strange thing happened.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	cop	_	_
4	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	0	root	_	_
5	constantly	constantly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	several	several	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	months	month	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
11	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl:unmarked	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present · perfect | I |  |  |  | month | constantly, there *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **happen** | past | a strange thing |  |  |  | night |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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