---
title: There were several giants, both young and old, in the hall, and they… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There were several giants, both young and old, in the hall, and they were all dancing round the princess. Who acts: several giants, grains. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 23, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 23, sentence 49

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There were several giants, both young and old, in the hall, and they were all dancing round the princess.

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**Who acts:** several giants, grains · **What happens:** be, dance

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (several giants, grains), 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:pg3282:23:49
# text = There were several giants, both young and old, in the hall, and they were all dancing round the princess.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	several	several	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	giants	giant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	both	both	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc:preconj	_	_
7	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	hall	hall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	all	all	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	dancing	dance	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
20	round	round	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | several giants |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **dance** | past · progressive | grains *= grain* |  |  |  |  | round the princess; all *property* | vn waltz-51.5 «NP.theme 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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