---
title: Choosing the best-looking horse amongst them he went up to it and sa… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Choosing the best-looking horse amongst them he went up to it and said: Who acts: Moti. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 15, sentence 52

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Choosing the best-looking horse amongst them he went up to it and said:

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**Who acts:** Moti · **What happens:** choose, look, go up, say · **To what, where:** looking horse, horsemarket · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Moti), 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:pg3454:15:52
# text = Choosing the best-looking horse amongst them he went up to it and said:
1	Choosing	choose	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	csubj	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
3	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	5	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	amod	_	_
6	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
7	amongst	amongst	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	1	obl	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
11	up	up	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **choose** | gerund |  | the looking horse |  |  |  | amongst horses *= horse* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent horse=Theme |
| 2 | **look** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **go up** | past | Moti |  | horsemarket |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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