---
title: When the courtiers saw them coming they hastened to tell the King. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When the courtiers saw them coming they hastened to tell the King. Who acts: courtiers, brothers. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The White Cat, part 3, sentence 16

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When the courtiers saw them coming they hastened to tell the King.

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**Who acts:** courtiers, brothers · **What happens:** see, come, hasten, tell · **To what, where:** brothers, King · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Cat, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (courtiers, brothers), 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:pg503:25:16
# text = When the courtiers saw them coming they hastened to tell the King.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	courtiers	courtier	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	coming	come	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	xcomp	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	hastened	hasten	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | the courtiers | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **come** | gerund | brothers *= brother* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **hasten** | past | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | brothers *= brother* *not said here* |  | the King |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent king=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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