---
title: After a long, long time came also a skipper who wished to see the mi… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: After a long, long time came also a skipper who wished to see the mill. Who acts: skipper. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Why the Sea Is Salt, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/20/54/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [Why the Sea Is Salt](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/20/) / 54

# The Blue Fairy Book, Why the Sea Is Salt, sentence 54

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
After a long, long time came also a skipper who wished to see the mill.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** skipper · **What happens:** come, wish, see · **To what, where:** skipper, mill

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Why the Sea Is Salt. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (skipper), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:20:54
# text = After a long, long time came also a skipper who wished to see the mill.
1	After	after	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
3	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
7	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	also	also	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	skipper	skipper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
12	wished	wish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	mill	mill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past |  | a skipper |  |  | time |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **wish** | past | a skipper |  |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **see** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | a skipper *not said here* | the mill |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer mill=Stimulus |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 53](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/20/53/)
- next →: [sentence 55](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/20/55/)
- ↑ back to [Why the Sea Is Salt](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/20/)