---
title: The old man settled her comfortably, then sprang up in front of her… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The old man settled her comfortably, then sprang up in front of her as easily as if he had been a boy, and, shaking the reins, they were soon out of sight. Who acts: old man, need, men. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 13, with its dependency tree and t
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 13, sentence 91

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The old man settled her comfortably, then sprang up in front of her as easily as if he had been a boy, and, shaking the reins, they were soon out of sight.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** old man, need, men · **What happens:** settle, spring up, be, shake · **To what, where:** Helga, front, boy, reins, sight

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man, need, men), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg3282:1176`): 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:pg3282:13:91
# text = The old man settled her comfortably, then sprang up in front of her as easily as if he had been a boy, and, shaking the reins, they were soon out of sight.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	settled	settle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	comfortably	comfortably	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	9	advmod	_	_
9	sprang	spring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	up	up	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nmod	_	_
15	as	as	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	easily	easily	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
17	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
18	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
20	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
21	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	23	cop	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	advcl	_	_
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	36	punct	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	36	cc	_	_
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
27	shaking	shake	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	36	advcl	_	_
28	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
29	reins	rein	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	27	obj	_	_
30	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
31	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	36	nsubj	_	_
32	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	36	cop	_	_
33	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	36	advmod	_	_
34	out	out	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
35	of	of	ADP	IN	_	34	fixed	_	_
36	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **settle** | past | the old man | Helga |  |  |  | comfortably *property* | vn odge-46-1 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme she=Location |
| 2 | **spring up** | past | the old man *not said here* |  |  | front of Helga | then | easily *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in front=Location |
| 3 | **is a** | past · perfect | need | a boy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **shake** | gerund | men *= man* *not said here* | the reins |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent rein=Patient |
| 5 | **is** | past | men *= man* |  |  | sight |  | soon *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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:** 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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