---
title: They had never been so far in the great wood before, they could not… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They had never been so far in the great wood before, they could not find any road nor path, and soon the girls noticed that they had lost their way. Who acts: baskets, girls. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/24/143/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 143

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They had never been so far in the great wood before, they could not find any road nor path, and soon the girls noticed that they had lost their way.

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**Who acts:** baskets, girls · **What happens:** not be, not find, notice, lose · **To what, where:** great wood, road, way · **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 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (baskets, girls), 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:pg3454:24:143
# text = They had never been so far in the great wood before, they could not find any road nor path, and soon the girls noticed that they had lost their way.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
3	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	cop	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	16	advmod	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
11	before	before	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
17	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	18	det	_	_
18	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	20	cc	_	_
20	path	path	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
23	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	26	advmod	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	nsubj	_	_
26	noticed	notice	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
27	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	30	mark	_	_
28	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
29	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	30	aux	_	_
30	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	26	ccomp	_	_
31	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	32	nmod:poss	_	_
32	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | participle |  |  |  | the great wood |  | far *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **find** | could · past | baskets *= basket* | any road nor path |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent road=Topic |
| 3 | **notice** | past | the girls |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn see-30.1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **lose** | past · perfect | baskets *= basket* | baskets's way |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Eventuality |

<!-- .note -->
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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