---
title: The mules, left to themselves, took the path that led to their maste… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The mules, left to themselves, took the path that led to their master’s stable. Who acts: mules, path. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, 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/pg3282/21/103/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 103

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The mules, left to themselves, took the path that led to their master’s stable.

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**Who acts:** mules, path · **What happens:** leave, take, lead · **To what, where:** mules, path

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mules, path), 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:pg3282:21:103
# text = The mules, left to themselves, took the path that led to their master’s stable.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	mules	mule	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
8	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	path	path	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
12	led	lead	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
14	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	master	master	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’s	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	stable	stable	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **leave** | participle |  | the mules *not said here* | mules *= mule* |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to themselves=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **take** | past | the mules | the path |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent path=Theme |
| 3 | **lead** | past | the path |  |  |  |  | to mules's master's stable | vn result-27.2 «NP V PP»: agent=Precondition to stable=Patient |

<!-- .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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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