---
title: The man saw a white stream a long way off, and guessed what had happ… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The man saw a white stream a long way off, and guessed what had happened. Who acts: man. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15, sentence 63

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The man saw a white stream a long way off, and guessed what had happened.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** see, guess, happen · **To what, where:** white stream · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg3282:15:63
# text = The man saw a white stream a long way off, and guessed what had happened.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	stream	stream	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl:unmarked	_	_
10	off	off	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	guessed	guess	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | the man | a white stream |  |  |  | a long way *obl:unmarked* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer stream=Stimulus |
| 2 | **guess** | past | the man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **happen** | past · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | 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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