---
title: Suddenly a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a voice said to him: — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Suddenly a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a voice said to him: Who acts: voice. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 59

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Suddenly a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a voice said to him:

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**Who acts:** voice · **What happens:** lay, say · **To what, where:** hand, shoulder, horse · **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 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (voice), 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:pg3454:16:59
# text = Suddenly a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a voice said to him:
1	Suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	laid	lay	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	shoulder	shoulder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay** | past · passive |  | a hand |  | horse's shoulder |  | suddenly *property* | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme on shoulder=Destination |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a voice |  | horse |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient |

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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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