---
title: So vast was the castle that the king’s three thousand men were of no… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So vast was the castle that the king’s three thousand men were of no more account than if they had been twenty. Who acts: vast, thousand men, youths. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 31, 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/pg3454/31/38/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 31, sentence 38

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So vast was the castle that the king’s three thousand men were of no more account than if they had been twenty.

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**Who acts:** vast, thousand men, youths · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** castle

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (vast, thousand men, youths), 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:pg3454:31:38
# text = So vast was the castle that the king’s three thousand men were of no more account than if they had been twenty.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	vast	vast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’s	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	compound	_	_
11	thousand	thousand	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
13	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	17	det	_	_
16	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	17	amod	_	_
17	account	account	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
18	than	than	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
19	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	23	cop	_	_
23	twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | vast | the castle and no more account |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | the king's thousand men |  |  |  |  | of no more account | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | youths *= youth* |  |  |  |  | than twenty | tree rules |

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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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