---
title: Well, that was a very small matter, they thought, and agreed to do it. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Well, that was a very small matter, they thought, and agreed to do it. Who acts: that, places. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, sentence 141

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Well, that was a very small matter, they thought, and agreed to do it.

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**Who acts:** that, places · **What happens:** be, think, agree, do · **To what, where:** small matter, matter · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, East of the Sun and West of the Moon. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (that, places), 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:pg503:4:141
# text = Well, that was a very small matter, they thought, and agreed to do it.
1	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	8	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	very	very	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	agreed	agree	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | that | a small matter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | places *= place* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **agree** *speech: agree* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  | matter |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |

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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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