---
title: The boy could not let it roll away, when it was so close to him, so… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The boy could not let it roll away, when it was so close to him, so he gave chase. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/6/91/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6, sentence 91

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The boy could not let it roll away, when it was so close to him, so he gave chase.

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**Who acts:** boy, ball · **What happens:** not let, roll away, be, give · **To what, where:** ball, boy, chase

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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:pg3282:6:91
# text = The boy could not let it roll away, when it was so close to him, so he gave chase.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	roll	roll	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	away	away	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	14	mark	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	so	so	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	close	close	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	so	so	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
21	chase	chase	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **let** | could | the boy | ball |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **roll away** | infinitive | ball *not said here* |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | ball |  | boy |  |  | close *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **give** | past | boy | chase |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chase=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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