---
title: This sounded much more difficult than what he had done before, and h… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: This sounded much more difficult than what he had done before, and he turned in despair to the Sister of the Sun. Who acts: This, king. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, 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/pg3282/24/18/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 18

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This sounded much more difficult than what he had done before, and he turned in despair to the Sister of the Sun.

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**Who acts:** This, king · **What happens:** sound, do, turn · **To what, where:** despair

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, king), 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:pg3282:24:18
# text = This sounded much more difficult than what he had done before, and he turned in despair to the Sister of the Sun.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sounded	sound	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	much	much	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	5	advmod	_	_
5	difficult	difficult	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	xcomp	_	_
6	than	than	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	obl	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	acl:relcl	_	_
11	before	before	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	turned	turn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	despair	despair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	Sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	Sun.	Sunday	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sound** | past | This |  |  |  |  | difficult *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **do** | past · perfect | king |  |  |  |  | before *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **turn** | past | king |  |  | despair |  | to the Sister of the Sun. | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme in despair=Trajectory |

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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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