---
title: Last of all came the reindeer, looking as he always did, as if some… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Last of all came the reindeer, looking as he always did, as if some serious business was on hand. Who acts: Last, reindeer, serious business. 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/pg3282/21/53/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 53

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Last of all came the reindeer, looking as he always did, as if some serious business was on hand.

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**Who acts:** Last, reindeer, serious business · **What happens:** come, look, do, be

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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 (Last, reindeer, serious business), 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:pg3282:21:53
# text = Last of all came the reindeer, looking as he always did, as if some serious business was on hand.
1	Last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	nsubj	_	_
2	of	of	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	1	nmod	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	reindeer	reindeer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
9	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	12	advmod	_	_
12	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
15	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
16	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	18	det	_	_
17	serious	serious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	business	business	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
20	on	on	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | Last of all |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **look** | gerund | Last of all *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **do** | past | reindeer |  |  |  |  | always *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | some serious business |  |  |  |  | as hand | tree rules |

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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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