---
title: But as he looked down from the air he saw a very strange sight--a be… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But as he looked down from the air he saw a very strange sight--a beautiful girl chained to a stake at the high-water mark of the sea. Who acts: boy. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Terrible Head, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Terrible Head, sentence 92

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But as he looked down from the air he saw a very strange sight--a beautiful girl chained to a stake at the high-water mark of the sea.

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**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** look down, see, chain, mark · **To what, where:** strange sight, beautiful girl, water mark, sea

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Terrible Head. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy), 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:pg503:27:92
# text = But as he looked down from the air he saw a very strange sight--a beautiful girl chained to a stake at the high-water mark of the sea.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
2	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
5	down	down	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	from	from	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	very	very	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	appos	_	_
19	chained	chain	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	acl	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	stake	stake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
23	at	at	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
25	high	high	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	compound	_	_
28	mark	mark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	_
29	of	of	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look down** | past | boy |  |  |  |  | from the air; down *property* | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent from air=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | past | boy | a strange sight |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer sight=Stimulus |
| 3 | **chain** | participle |  | a beautiful girl *not said here* |  | the water mark of the sea |  | to a stake | vn tape-22.4 «NP V ADV-Middle PP»: agent=Patient to stake=Co-Patient |
| 4 | **mark** |  |  | the sea |  |  |  |  | nom mark «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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.

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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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