---
title: But as he did so it began to roll very gently downhill. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But as he did so it began to roll very gently downhill. Who acts: boy, ball. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6, sentence 90

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But as he did so it began to roll very gently downhill.

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**Who acts:** boy, ball · **What happens:** do, begin, roll

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, ball), 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:pg3282:6:90
# text = But as he did so it began to roll very gently downhill.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	roll	roll	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	very	very	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	gently	gently	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
12	downhill	downhill	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **begin** | past | ball |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **roll** | to-infinitive | ball *not said here* |  |  |  |  | downhill, gently *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «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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