---
title: The King was in despair about it, when a wise old man said to him: — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The King was in despair about it, when a wise old man said to him: Who acts: King, wise old man. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Bronze Ring, sentence 3

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The King was in despair about it, when a wise old man said to him:

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**Who acts:** King, wise old man · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** despair, king · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, wise old man), 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:pg503:2:3
# text = The King was in despair about it, when a wise old man said to him:
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	despair	despair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	about	about	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
11	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
12	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the King |  |  | despair |  | about despair | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a wise old man |  | king |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient |

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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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