---
title: ‘Something strange must have occurred,’ exclaimed the old farmer on… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Something strange must have occurred,’ exclaimed the old farmer on the moor, who by this time was not only hungry, but cross. Who acts: old farmer. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 36, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/36/30/)

<!-- 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 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/36/) / 30

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 36, sentence 30

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Something strange must have occurred,’ exclaimed the old farmer on the moor, who by this time was not only hungry, but cross.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** old farmer · **What happens:** occur, exclaim, not be · **To what, where:** Something, old farmer, moor

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 36. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old farmer), 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:pg3454:36:30
# text = ‘Something strange must have occurred,’ exclaimed the old farmer on the moor, who by this time was not only hungry, but cross.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	amod	_	_
4	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux	_	_
6	occurred	occur	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
9	exclaimed	exclaim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	farmer	farmer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	moor	moor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
17	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	24	nsubj	_	_
18	by	by	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	20	det	_	_
20	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
22	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	24	advmod	_	_
23	only	only	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	cross	cross	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **occur** | must · perfect · passive |  | Something |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **exclaim** *speech: express* | past |  | the old farmer |  | the moor |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent farmer=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **is** | past | the old farmer |  |  |  | time | hungry *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/36/29/)
- next →: [sentence 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/36/31/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/36/)