---
title: And how did you cross that pitiless desert where never yet foot of m… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And how did you cross that pitiless desert where never yet foot of man had trod?” Who acts: you. 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.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 97

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And how did you cross that pitiless desert where never yet foot of man had trod?”

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** cross, tread · **To what, where:** pitiless desert

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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 (you), 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:pg3282:4:97
# text = And how did you cross that pitiless desert where never yet foot of man had trod?”
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	cross	cross	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
7	pitiless	pitiless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	desert	desert	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	16	advmod	_	_
10	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
11	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	foot	foot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	trod	tread	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cross** | past · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **tread** | past · perfect · passive |  | pitiless desert |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location 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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