---
title: He told his son the secret of the cave, which his son handed down in… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He told his son the secret of the cave, which his son handed down in his turn, so the children and grandchildren of Ali Baba were rich to the end of their lives. Who acts: captain, cave, children. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves, with its dependency tree and the
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/34/155/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [The Forty Thieves](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/34/) / 155

# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 155

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He told his son the secret of the cave, which his son handed down in his turn, so the children and grandchildren of Ali Baba were rich to the end of their lives.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** captain, cave, children · **What happens:** tell, son, hand down, be · **To what, where:** secret, son, turn · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (captain, cave, children), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:34:155
# text = He told his son the secret of the cave, which his son handed down in his turn, so the children and grandchildren of Ali Baba were rich to the end of their lives.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	iobj	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	secret	secret	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	nsubj	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	_
14	handed	hand	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	acl	_	_
15	down	down	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	turn	turn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
20	so	so	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	nsubj	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	grandchildren	grandchild	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	conj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	Ali	Ali	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	27	compound	_	_
27	Baba	Baba	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
28	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	cop	_	_
29	rich	rich	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	_
30	to	to	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	_
33	of	of	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
34	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	35	nmod:poss	_	_
35	lives	life	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | captain | the secret of the cave and captain's son | captain's son |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent son=Recipient secret=Topic |
| 2 | **son** |  | the cave and captain's son |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **hand down** | participle |  | captain's son *not said here* |  | captain's turn |  |  | vn send-11.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | past | the children of Ali Baba and grandchildren |  |  |  | to the end of children's lives | rich *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 154](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/34/154/)
- next →: [sentence 156](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/34/156/)
- ↑ back to [The Forty Thieves](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/34/)