---
title: At length the goal was in sight, and Ball-Carrier knew that unless h… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At length the goal was in sight, and Ball-Carrier knew that unless he could get ahead now he would be killed before his own door, under the eyes of his wife. Who acts: goal, Ball Carrier, Carrier. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 7, with its dependency 
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 98

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At length the goal was in sight, and Ball-Carrier knew that unless he could get ahead now he would be killed before his own door, under the eyes of his wife.

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**Who acts:** goal, Ball Carrier, Carrier · **What happens:** be, know, get, kill · **To what, where:** sight, Carrier, eyes · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (goal, Ball Carrier, Carrier), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg3282:641`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3282:7:98
# text = At length the goal was in sight, and Ball-Carrier knew that unless he could get ahead now he would be killed before his own door, under the eyes of his wife.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	goal	goal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	Ball	Ball	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	_
12	Carrier	Carrier	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
15	unless	unless	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	advcl	_	_
19	ahead	ahead	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
20	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	18	advmod	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj:pass	_	_
22	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
23	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	aux:pass	_	_
24	killed	kill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	ccomp	_	_
25	before	before	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
26	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
27	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
30	under	under	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obl	_	_
33	of	of	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
34	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	35	nmod:poss	_	_
35	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nmod	_	_
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the goal |  |  | sight |  | at length | tree rules |
| 2 | **know** | past | Ball Carrier |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **get** *a condition, not said to happen* | could | Carrier |  |  |  | now | ahead *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **kill** | would · passive |  | Carrier |  | the eyes of Carrier's wife | before Carrier's own door |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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