---
title: He came to the banks of a river, and knelt down to say his prayers b… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He came to the banks of a river, and knelt down to say his prayers before throwing himself in. Who acts: Aladdin. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, sentence 196

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He came to the banks of a river, and knelt down to say his prayers before throwing himself in.

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**Who acts:** Aladdin · **What happens:** come, kneel down, say, throw in, pray · **To what, where:** banks, prayers, Aladdin · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Aladdin), 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:pg503:12:196
# text = He came to the banks of a river, and knelt down to say his prayers before throwing himself in.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	banks	bank	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	knelt	kneel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	down	down	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	prayers	prayer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	_
17	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
18	throwing	throw	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	14	advcl	_	_
19	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	18	obj	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	RP	_	18	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | Aladdin |  |  | the banks of a river |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to bank=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **kneel down** | past | Aladdin *not said here* |  |  |  |  | down *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | Aladdin *not said here* | Aladdin's prayers |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent prayer=Topic |
| 4 | **throw in** | gerund | Aladdin *not said here* | Aladdin |  |  |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent himself=Theme |
| 5 | **pray** |  | Aladdin |  |  |  |  |  | nom prayer «act intransitive»: poss=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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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