---
title: He spent his whole time in making riddles, and inventing plans which… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He spent his whole time in making riddles, and inventing plans which he had much better have let alone. Who acts: king. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 25, 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/pg3282/25/23/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 25, sentence 23

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He spent his whole time in making riddles, and inventing plans which he had much better have let alone.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** spend, make, invent, let · **To what, where:** riddles

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 25. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (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:pg3282:25:23
# text = He spent his whole time in making riddles, and inventing plans which he had much better have let alone.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	spent	spend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
4	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
7	making	make	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
8	riddles	riddle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
11	inventing	invent	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
12	plans	plan	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
13	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	obj	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
16	much	much	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	15	xcomp	_	_
18	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	let	let	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	advcl	_	_
20	alone	alone	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spend** | past | king |  |  |  | time |  | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **make** | gerund | king *not said here* | riddles |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset riddle=Product |
| 3 | **invent** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **let** | past · perfect · passive |  |  |  |  |  | alone *property* | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=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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