---
title: Before he had walked very far he met a boy who came whistling along,… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Before he had walked very far he met a boy who came whistling along, hitting at the tops of the flowers with a stick. Who acts: way, boy. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 20, 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/pg3282/20/81/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 20, sentence 81

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Before he had walked very far he met a boy who came whistling along, hitting at the tops of the flowers with a stick.

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**Who acts:** way, boy · **What happens:** walk, meet, come, whistle, hit · **To what, where:** boy

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (way, boy), 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:pg3282:20:81
# text = Before he had walked very far he met a boy who came whistling along, hitting at the tops of the flowers with a stick.
1	Before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	walked	walk	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
12	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	whistling	whistle	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	xcomp	_	_
14	along	along	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	hitting	hit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	conj	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	tops	top	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	flowers	flower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	_
23	with	with	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **walk** | past · perfect | way |  |  |  |  | far *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **meet** | past | way | a boy |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boy=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **come** | past | a boy |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **whistle** | gerund | a boy *not said here* |  |  |  |  | along *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **hit** | gerund | a boy *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with a stick; at the tops of the flowers | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V PP PP»: agent=Agent at top=Patient with stick=Instrument |

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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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