---
title: Meantime he must be ready in case a chance should come, and he made… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Meantime he must be ready in case a chance should come, and he made his preparations at night, when everyone was asleep. Who acts: Meantime, chance, colt, everyone. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 27, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ever
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 27, sentence 5

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Meantime he must be ready in case a chance should come, and he made his preparations at night, when everyone was asleep.

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**Who acts:** Meantime, chance, colt, everyone · **What happens:** be, come, make, prepare · **To what, where:** preparations

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Meantime, chance, colt, everyone), 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:pg3454:27:5
# text = Meantime he must be ready in case a chance should come, and he made his preparations at night, when everyone was asleep.
1	Meantime	meantime	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	cop	_	_
5	ready	ready	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	in	in	SCONJ	IN	ExtPos=SCONJ	11	mark	_	_
7	case	case	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	fixed	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	chance	chance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
10	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	preparations	preparation	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
21	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	24	mark	_	_
22	everyone	everyone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	24	nsubj	_	_
23	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
24	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | must | Meantime |  |  |  |  | ready *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **come** | should | a chance |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **make** | past | colt | colt's preparations |  |  | night |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent preparation=Product |
| 4 | **is** | past | everyone |  |  |  |  | asleep *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **prepare** |  | colt |  |  |  |  |  | nom preparation «act transitive»: poss=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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