---
title: Fifty doors flew open before him, and at length he reached a long fl… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Fifty doors flew open before him, and at length he reached a long flight of steps which seemed to lead into the bowels of the earth. Who acts: Fifty doors, idiot, steps. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 28, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/28/6/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/28/) / 6

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 28, sentence 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Fifty doors flew open before him, and at length he reached a long flight of steps which seemed to lead into the bowels of the earth.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Fifty doors, idiot, steps · **What happens:** fly, reach, seem, lead · **To what, where:** long flight, length, bowels

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 28. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Fifty doors, idiot, steps), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3454:28:6
# text = Fifty doors flew open before him, and at length he reached a long flight of steps which seemed to lead into the bowels of the earth.
1	Fifty	fifty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	doors	door	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	xcomp	_	_
5	before	before	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	flight	flight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nmod	_	_
18	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
19	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	acl:relcl	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	lead	lead	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	into	into	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	bowels	bowel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | past | Fifty doors |  |  |  | before idiot | open *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme before he=Location |
| 2 | **reach** | past | idiot | a long flight of steps |  | length |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.source NP.asset»: agent=Agent flight=Theme at length=Asset |
| 3 | **seem** | past | steps |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 4 | **lead** | to-infinitive | steps *not said here* |  |  | the bowels of the earth |  |  | vn accompany-51.7 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent into bowel=Destination |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/28/5/)
- next →: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/28/7/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/28/)