---
title: ‘Sore was the plight of thy wife and thy horses when they passed the… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Sore was the plight of thy wife and thy horses when they passed the river last night,’ said the otter. Who acts: Sore, sticks, plight. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 88

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‘Sore was the plight of thy wife and thy horses when they passed the river last night,’ said the otter.

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**Who acts:** Sore, sticks, plight · **What happens:** be, pass, say · **To what, where:** plight, river · **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 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Sore, sticks, plight), 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:pg3454:9:88
# text = ‘Sore was the plight of thy wife and thy horses when they passed the river last night,’ said the otter.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Sore	Sore	PROPN	NNP	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	plight	plight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	thy	thy	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	thy	thy	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	horses	horse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	conj	_	_
12	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	passed	pass	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
17	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
21	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	otter	otter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	21	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Sore | the plight |  |  |  | of thy wife and thy horses | tree rules |
| 2 | **pass** | past | sticks *= stick* | the river |  |  | night |  | vn escape-51.1-1-3 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme river=Trajectory |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the plight |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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