---
title: While he was in this sore plight a little door in the castle gate op… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: While he was in this sore plight a little door in the castle gate opened, and he could see a street facing him, with tall houses. Who acts: blow, little door, street. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 30, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 30, sentence 80

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While he was in this sore plight a little door in the castle gate opened, and he could see a street facing him, with tall houses.

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**Who acts:** blow, little door, street · **What happens:** be, open, see, face · **To what, where:** sore plight, street, blow

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 30. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (blow, little door, street), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg3454:2741`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3454:30:80
# text = While he was in this sore plight a little door in the castle gate opened, and he could see a street facing him, with tall houses.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
6	sore	sore	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	plight	plight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	advcl	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	gate	gate	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
15	opened	open	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	street	street	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	facing	face	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	22	acl	_	_
24	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	_
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
26	with	with	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	tall	tall	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	houses	house	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nmod	_	_
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | blow |  |  | this sore plight |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **open** | past | a little door in the castle gate |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **see** | could | blow | a street |  |  |  | with tall houses | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer street=Stimulus |
| 4 | **face** | gerund | a street *not said here* |  | blow |  |  |  | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme he=Destination |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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