---
title: About noon the robbers returned to their cave, and saw Cassim’s mule… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: About noon the robbers returned to their cave, and saw Cassim’s mules roving about with great chests on their backs. Who acts: noon, mules. 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 45

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About noon the robbers returned to their cave, and saw Cassim’s mules roving about with great chests on their backs.

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**Who acts:** noon, mules · **What happens:** return, see, rove · **To what, where:** mules

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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 (noon, mules), 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:pg503:34:45
# text = About noon the robbers returned to their cave, and saw Cassim’s mules roving about with great chests on their backs.
1	About	about	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	noon	noon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	robbers	robber	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
12	Cassim	Cassim	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’s	's	PART	POS	_	12	case	_	_
14	mules	mule	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	_
15	roving	rove	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	14	acl	_	_
16	about	about	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	chests	chest	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	_
20	on	on	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	backs	back	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **return** | past | noon |  |  |  |  | to robbers's cave *result* | vn convert-26.6.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to cave=Result |
| 2 | **see** | past | noon *not said here* | Cassim's mules |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer mule=Stimulus |
| 3 | **rove** | gerund | Cassim's mules *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with great chests on robbers's backs; about *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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