---
title: So he slowly broke the seal, and untied the strings, and, behold, a… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So he slowly broke the seal, and untied the strings, and, behold, a heap of burnt bones lay before him! Who acts: harm, heap. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 27, 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/pg3282/27/33/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 27, sentence 33

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So he slowly broke the seal, and untied the strings, and, behold, a heap of burnt bones lay before him!

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**Who acts:** harm, heap · **What happens:** break, untie, lay · **To what, where:** seal, strings

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (harm, heap), 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:pg3282:27:33
# text = So he slowly broke the seal, and untied the strings, and, behold, a heap of burnt bones lay before him!
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	slowly	slowly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	seal	seal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	untied	untie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	strings	string	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	behold	behold	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	heap	heap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	burnt	burnt	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	bones	bone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nmod	_	_
22	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
23	before	before	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break** | past | harm | the seal |  |  |  | slowly *property* | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer seal=Patient |
| 2 | **untie** | past | harm *not said here* | the strings |  |  |  |  | vn disassemble-23.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent string=Patient |
| 3 | **lay** | present | a heap of burnt bones |  |  |  | before harm |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent before he=Destination |

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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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