---
title: He had no idea where the golden hen might be, or even, if he discove… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He had no idea where the golden hen might be, or even, if he discovered that, how he was to get to her. Who acts: boy. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 22, 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/pg3282/22/140/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 22, sentence 140

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He had no idea where the golden hen might be, or even, if he discovered that, how he was to get to her.

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**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** have, discover, be · **To what, where:** idea, that, hen

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (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:pg3282:22:140
# text = He had no idea where the golden hen might be, or even, if he discovered that, how he was to get to her.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	4	det	_	_
4	idea	idea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	10	advmod	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	hen	hen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	even	even	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
15	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	discovered	discover	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
18	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
20	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	24	advmod	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
22	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	parataxis	_	_
25	to	to	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | boy | no idea |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent idea=Patient |
| 2 | **discover** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | boy | that |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Topic |
| 3 | **is** | past | boy |  | hen |  |  | get *property* | 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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