---
title: He was thinking of tying his horse to a tree which grew near the gat… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He was thinking of tying his horse to a tree which grew near the gate when a negro came out and spied him. Who acts: prince, tree, negro. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, 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/pg3282/4/19/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Brown Fairy Book, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/4/) / 19

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 19

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He was thinking of tying his horse to a tree which grew near the gate when a negro came out and spied him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** prince, tree, negro · **What happens:** think, tie, grow, come out, spy · **To what, where:** horse, gate, prince

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, tree, negro), 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:pg3282:4:19
# text = He was thinking of tying his horse to a tree which grew near the gate when a negro came out and spied him.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
5	tying	tie	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
11	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
12	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	near	near	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	gate	gate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
16	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	19	mark	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	negro	negro	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
20	out	out	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	spied	spy	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	conj	_	_
23	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past · progressive | prince |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **tie** | gerund | prince *not said here* | prince's horse |  |  |  | to a tree | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent horse=Patient to tree=Co-Patient |
| 3 | **grow** | past | a tree |  |  | the gate |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme near gate=Location |
| 4 | **come out** | past | a negro |  |  |  |  | out *property* | vn become-109.1 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **spy** | past | a negro *not said here* | prince |  |  |  |  | vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |

<!-- .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 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/4/18/)
- next →: [sentence 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/4/20/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/4/)