---
title: Then they told him the adventures of the cat, and showed him the cab… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then they told him the adventures of the cat, and showed him the cabinet of jewels which they had brought for Mr. Whittington. Who acts: eyes. 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 63

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then they told him the adventures of the cat, and showed him the cabinet of jewels which they had brought for Mr. Whittington.

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**Who acts:** eyes · **What happens:** tell, show, bring, adventure · **To what, where:** adventures, unseasonable, cabinet, cat · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (eyes), 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:pg503:29:63
# text = Then they told him the adventures of the cat, and showed him the cabinet of jewels which they had brought for Mr. Whittington.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	adventures	adventure	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	showed	show	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	iobj	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	cabinet	cabinet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	iobj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	jewels	jewel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nmod	_	_
18	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
20	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	brought	bring	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	acl:relcl	_	_
22	for	for	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	Mr.	Mr.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	24	nmod:desc	_	_
24	Whittington	Whittington	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | eyes *= eye* | the adventures of the cat | unseasonable |  | then |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient adventure=Topic |
| 2 | **show** | past | eyes *= eye* *not said here* |  | the cabinet of jewels |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient cabinet=Topic |
| 3 | **bring** | past · perfect · passive |  | the cabinet of jewels |  |  |  | for Whittington  Mr. | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: subject=Theme |
| 4 | **adventure** |  |  | the cat |  |  |  |  | nom adventure «act 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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