---
title: His father and mother stood silently behind with a curious pang in t… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: His father and mother stood silently behind with a curious pang in their souls which they did not quite understand. Who acts: father. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 21, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 123

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His father and mother stood silently behind with a curious pang in their souls which they did not quite understand.

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**Who acts:** father · **What happens:** stand, not understand · **To what, where:** souls

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (father), 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:pg3454:21:123
# text = His father and mother stood silently behind with a curious pang in their souls which they did not quite understand.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
5	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	silently	silently	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	behind	behind	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	curious	curious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	pang	pang	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	souls	soul	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	_
15	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	obj	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
17	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
19	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | prince's father and mother |  |  |  |  | with a curious pang in father's souls; behind *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **understand** | past · do-support | father | father's souls |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer which=Stimulus |

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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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