---
title: The old man drew near him in order to watch closely, and his white b… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The old man drew near him in order to watch closely, and his white beard hung right down. Who acts: old man, white beard. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 167

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The old man drew near him in order to watch closely, and his white beard hung right down.

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**Who acts:** old man, white beard · **What happens:** draw, watch, hang · **To what, where:** order

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man, white beard), 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:pg503:13:167
# text = The old man drew near him in order to watch closely, and his white beard hung right down.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	drew	draw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	near	near	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	order	order	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	watch	watch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
11	closely	closely	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	hung	hang	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
18	right	right	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	down	down	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **draw** | past | the old man |  |  | order |  | near monster | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent in order=Destination |
| 2 | **watch** | to-infinitive | the old man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | closely *property* | vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **hang** | past | man's white beard |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: 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 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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