---
title: It was the owner of the field, who was coming on tiptoes to see if,… — The Adventures of Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi · tree and pragmatics
description: It was the owner of the field, who was coming on tiptoes to see if, by chance, he had caught the Weasels which had been eating his chickens. Who acts: Serpent, owner, father, Weasels. A sentence of «The Adventures of Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi», a book of tales from Project Gutenberg with its depen
---

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# The Adventures of Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi, sentence 865

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It was the owner of the field, who was coming on tiptoes to see if, by chance, he had caught the Weasels which had been eating his chickens.

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**Who acts:** Serpent, owner, father, Weasels · **What happens:** be, come, see, catch, eat · **To what, where:** owner, tiptoes, Weasels, chickens

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This is a sentence of «The Adventures of Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi», a book of tales from Project Gutenberg. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Serpent, owner, father, Weasels), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = gutenberg:pg500:865
# text = It was the owner of the field, who was coming on tiptoes to see if, by chance, he had caught the Weasels which had been eating his chickens.
# source = Project Gutenberg (public domain in the USA), book id in sent_id
# annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	owner	owner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	field	field	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	coming	come	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	acl:relcl	_	_
12	on	on	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	tiptoes	tiptoe	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
16	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
18	by	by	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	chance	chance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	caught	catch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	15	ccomp	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	Weasels	weasel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	_
26	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	29	nsubj	_	_
27	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
28	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	29	aux	_	_
29	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	25	acl:relcl	_	_
30	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	31	nmod:poss	_	_
31	chickens	chicken	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	obj	_	_
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Serpent | the owner |  |  |  | of the field | tree rules |
| 2 | **come** | past · progressive | the owner |  |  | tiptoes |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on tiptoe=Location |
| 3 | **see** | to-infinitive | the owner *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **catch** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | father | the Weasels |  |  |  | by chance | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent weasel=Theme |
| 5 | **eat** | past · perfect · progressive | the Weasels | father's chickens |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chicken=Patient |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Adventures of Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi», Project Gutenberg book 500 (public domain in the USA). **Annotation:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`mova-tales-silver-en.conllu`), Apache-2.0 OR MIT: parsed by Mova, patched by a large language model as teacher under UD validation gates. Sentence `gutenberg:pg500:865`.

**The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the tale's sample read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.

See the [release 0.3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.3/).

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