---
title: By-and-by some travellers came past, and the chief among them asked… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: By-and-by some travellers came past, and the chief among them asked leave to marry Ball-Carrier’s daughter. Who acts: chief. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8, 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/pg3282/8/1/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 8, sentence 1

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By-and-by some travellers came past, and the chief among them asked leave to marry Ball-Carrier’s daughter.

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**Who acts:** chief · **What happens:** come, ask, leave, marry · **To what, where:** daughter · **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 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (chief), 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:pg3282:8:1
# text = By-and-by some travellers came past, and the chief among them asked leave to marry Ball-Carrier’s daughter.
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	by	by	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	7	det	_	_
7	travellers	traveller	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
8	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	past	past	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	chief	chief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
14	among	among	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nmod	_	_
16	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
17	leave	leave	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	ccomp	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
20	Ball	Ball	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	Carrier	Carrier	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’s	's	PART	POS	_	22	case	_	_
24	daughter	daughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past |  |  |  |  |  | by some travellers; past *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by traveller=Location |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the chief among travellers |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **leave** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **marry** | to-infinitive |  | Ball Carrier's daughter |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent daughter=Patient |

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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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