---
title: Antoine was sitting on a plum tree belonging to a neighbour, eating… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Antoine was sitting on a plum tree belonging to a neighbour, eating the ripe fruit, when he saw the three young farmers coming towards him. Who acts: Antoine, three young farmers. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12, with its dependency tree and the pra
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/12/40/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 40

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Antoine was sitting on a plum tree belonging to a neighbour, eating the ripe fruit, when he saw the three young farmers coming towards him.

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**Who acts:** Antoine, three young farmers · **What happens:** sit, belong, eat, see, come · **To what, where:** plum tree, ripe fruit, three young farmers

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Antoine, three young farmers), 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:pg3454:12:40
# text = Antoine was sitting on a plum tree belonging to a neighbour, eating the ripe fruit, when he saw the three young farmers coming towards him.
1	Antoine	Antoine	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	plum	plum	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
8	belonging	belong	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	neighbour	neighbour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	ripe	ripe	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	fruit	fruit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	20	advmod	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
22	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	24	nummod	_	_
23	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	farmers	farmer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obj	_	_
25	coming	come	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	24	acl	_	_
26	towards	towards	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · progressive | Antoine |  |  | a plum tree |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on tree=Location |
| 2 | **belong** | gerund | Antoine *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to a neighbour | vn attend-107.4-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **eat** | gerund | Antoine *not said here* | the ripe fruit |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fruit=Patient |
| 4 | **see** | past | Antoine | the three young farmers |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer farmer=Stimulus |
| 5 | **come** | gerund | the three young farmers *not said here* |  |  |  |  | towards Antoine | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme towards he=Initial\_Location |

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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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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