---
title: The girl saw that nurse tottering along and went down to help, march… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The girl saw that nurse tottering along and went down to help, marching with the gait of a prancing peacock. Who acts: girl, nurse. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 3, 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/pg3282/3/52/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 3, sentence 52

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The girl saw that nurse tottering along and went down to help, marching with the gait of a prancing peacock.

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**Who acts:** girl, nurse · **What happens:** see, totter, go down, help, march · **To what, where:** nurse

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (girl, nurse), 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:pg3282:3:52
# text = The girl saw that nurse tottering along and went down to help, marching with the gait of a prancing peacock.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	nurse	nurse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	tottering	totter	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
7	along	along	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	down	down	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	marching	march	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	conj	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	gait	gait	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	prancing	prancing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	_
21	peacock	peacock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	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 | **see** | past | the girl | that nurse |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer nurse=Stimulus |
| 2 | **totter** | gerund | that nurse *not said here* |  |  |  |  | along *property* | vn body\_internal\_motion-49.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **go down** | past | the girl *not said here* |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 4 | **help** | to-infinitive | the girl *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **march** | gerund | the girl *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with the gait of a prancing peacock | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP 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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