---
title: A day or two later the young tortoise was taking a stroll, when he m… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A day or two later the young tortoise was taking a stroll, when he met a fox, and stopped to speak to him. Who acts: day, man. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/35/73/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Brown Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/) / [Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted,…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/35/) / 73

# The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2, sentence 73

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A day or two later the young tortoise was taking a stroll, when he met a fox, and stopped to speak to him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** day, man · **What happens:** take, meet, stop, speak · **To what, where:** stroll, fox, man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (day, man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3282:35:73
# text = A day or two later the young tortoise was taking a stroll, when he met a fox, and stopped to speak to him.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
3	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	conj	_	_
5	later	late	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	10	advmod	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	tortoise	tortoise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	taking	take	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	stroll	stroll	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	stopped	stop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	_
24	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past · progressive | a day | a stroll |  |  |  | late *property* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stroll=Theme |
| 2 | **meet** | past | man | a fox |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fox=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **stop** | past | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **speak** *speech: other* | to-infinitive | man *not said here* |  | man |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to he=Co-Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 72](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/35/72/)
- next →: [sentence 74](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/35/74/)
- ↑ back to [Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/35/)