---
title: There sat Matte in his ragged grey jacket, quite alone, on the steps… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There sat Matte in his ragged grey jacket, quite alone, on the steps of the old hut, mending a net. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/24/75/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 75

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There sat Matte in his ragged grey jacket, quite alone, on the steps of the old hut, mending a net.

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**What happens:** sit, mend, step · **To what, where:** Matte, ragged grey jacket, net, old hut

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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: 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:pg3454:24:75
# text = There sat Matte in his ragged grey jacket, quite alone, on the steps of the old hut, mending a net.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	Matte	Matte	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
6	ragged	ragged	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	grey	grey	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	jacket	jacket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	alone	alone	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	hut	hut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	mending	mend	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	net	net	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past |  | Matte |  | Matte's ragged grey jacket; there |  | on the steps of the old hut; alone *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent matte=Theme in jacket=Location |
| 2 | **mend** | gerund |  | a net |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **step** |  |  | the old hut |  |  |  |  | nom step «act transitive»: of=patient |

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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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