---
title: They stayed some time inside, and Ali Baba, fearing they might come… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They stayed some time inside, and Ali Baba, fearing they might come out and catch him, was forced to sit patiently in the tree. Who acts: rocks. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 10

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They stayed some time inside, and Ali Baba, fearing they might come out and catch him, was forced to sit patiently in the tree.

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**Who acts:** rocks · **What happens:** stay, fear, come out, catch, force, sit · **To what, where:** Ali, tree · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (rocks), 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:pg503:34:10
# text = They stayed some time inside, and Ali Baba, fearing they might come out and catch him, was forced to sit patiently in the tree.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stayed	stay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	4	det	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl:unmarked	_	_
5	inside	inside	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	Ali	Ali	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
9	Baba	Baba	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	fearing	fear	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	advcl	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
15	out	out	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	forced	force	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	sit	sit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	_
24	patiently	patiently	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
25	in	in	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stay** | past | rocks *= rock* | Ali |  |  | time | inside *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **fear** | gerund | rocks *= rock* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **come out** | might | rocks *= rock* |  |  |  |  | out *property* | vn become-109.1 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **catch** | infinitive | rocks *= rock* *not said here* | Ali |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 5 | **force** | past · passive | rocks *= rock* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: clause=Topic |
| 6 | **sit** | to-infinitive | rocks *= rock* *not said here* |  |  | the tree |  | patiently *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in tree=Location |

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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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