---
title: The Forty Thieves, on their return to the cave, were much astonished… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The Forty Thieves, on their return to the cave, were much astonished to find Cassim’s body gone and some of their money-bags. Who acts: Forty Thieves, Thieves. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/34/68/)

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 68

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The Forty Thieves, on their return to the cave, were much astonished to find Cassim’s body gone and some of their money-bags.

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**Who acts:** Forty Thieves, Thieves · **What happens:** be, find, return · **To what, where:** body

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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 (Forty Thieves, Thieves), 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:pg503:34:68
# text = The Forty Thieves, on their return to the cave, were much astonished to find Cassim’s body gone and some of their money-bags.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	Forty	Forty	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	Thieves	Thief	PROPN	NNPS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	return	return	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	much	much	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	astonished	astonished	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	Cassim	Cassim	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’s	's	PART	POS	_	17	case	_	_
19	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	gone	gone	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	20	conj	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
24	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
25	money	money	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	bags	bag	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the Forty Thieves |  |  |  |  | astonished *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **find** | to-infinitive | the Forty Thieves *not said here* | Cassim's body |  |  |  | gone *property* | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent body=Topic |
| 3 | **return** |  | Thieves *= thief* |  |  |  |  | to the cave | nom return «communication intransitive»: poss=agent to=obl |

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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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