---
title: After some time, however, a gentleman who came to his master’s house… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: After some time, however, a gentleman who came to his master’s house gave Whittington a penny for brushing his shoes. Who acts: gentleman. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Whittington, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The History of Whittington, sentence 17

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After some time, however, a gentleman who came to his master’s house gave Whittington a penny for brushing his shoes.

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**Who acts:** gentleman · **What happens:** come, give, brush · **To what, where:** house, penny, Whittington, shoes

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Whittington. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gentleman), 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:pg503:29:17
# text = After some time, however, a gentleman who came to his master’s house gave Whittington a penny for brushing his shoes.
1	After	after	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	3	det	_	_
3	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	however	however	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	gentleman	gentleman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
9	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
10	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	master	master	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’s	's	PART	POS	_	13	case	_	_
15	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
16	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
17	Whittington	Whittington	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	iobj	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	penny	penny	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
21	brushing	brush	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	shoes	shoe	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | a gentleman |  |  | Whittington's master's house |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to house=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **give** | past | a gentleman | a penny | Whittington |  | time | however *property* | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent whittington=Recipient penny=Theme |
| 3 | **brush** | gerund | a gentleman *not said here* | Whittington's shoes |  |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent shoe=Theme |

<!-- .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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