---
title: Unluckily he missed the way, and in his excitement ran backwards and… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Unluckily he missed the way, and in his excitement ran backwards and forwards, without knowing whither he was going. Who acts: head. 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/pg3282/24/39/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 39

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Unluckily he missed the way, and in his excitement ran backwards and forwards, without knowing whither he was going.

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**Who acts:** head · **What happens:** miss, run, know, go, excite · **To what, where:** way, excitement · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (head), 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:pg3282:24:39
# text = Unluckily he missed the way, and in his excitement ran backwards and forwards, without knowing whither he was going.
1	Unluckily	unluckily	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	missed	miss	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	excitement	excitement	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
11	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
12	backwards	backwards	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	forwards	forwards	ADV	RB	_	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
17	knowing	know	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
18	whither	whither	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	21	advmod	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **miss** | past | head | the way |  |  |  | unluckily *property* | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer way=Stimulus |
| 2 | **run** | past | head *not said here* |  |  | head's excitement |  | backwards *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in excitement=Trajectory |
| 3 | **know** | gerund | head *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **go** | past · progressive | head |  |  |  |  | whither *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **excite** |  | head |  |  |  |  |  | nom excitement «feeling transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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