---
title: Then they followed secretly a long way off to see what became of it. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then they followed secretly a long way off to see what became of it. Who acts: servants. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 5, 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/pg3454/5/8/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 5, sentence 8

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Then they followed secretly a long way off to see what became of it.

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**Who acts:** servants · **What happens:** follow, see, become · **To what, where:** long way · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (servants), 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:pg3454:5:8
# text = Then they followed secretly a long way off to see what became of it.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	followed	follow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	secretly	secretly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
8	off	off	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	acl	_	_
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	nsubj	_	_
12	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **follow** | past | servants *= servant* | a long way |  |  | then | secretly *property* | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | to-infinitive | servants *= servant* *not said here* | a long way *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **become** | past |  |  |  |  |  | of monkey | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |

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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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