---
title: While he lay there the people came, and looking him all over read on… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: While he lay there the people came, and looking him all over read on his girdle: “Seven at a blow.” Who acts: tailor, people. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brave Little Tailor, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Brave Little Tailor, sentence 66

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While he lay there the people came, and looking him all over read on his girdle: “Seven at a blow.”

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**Who acts:** tailor, people · **What happens:** lie, come, look, read · **To what, where:** Seven, tailor, girdle

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brave Little Tailor. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tailor, people), 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:pg503:42:66
# text = While he lay there the people came, and looking him all over read on his girdle: “Seven at a blow.”
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
7	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	all	all	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	over	over	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	read	read	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	advcl	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	girdle	girdle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
19	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	Seven	seven	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	obl	_	_
21	at	at	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	blow	blow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past | tailor | Seven at a blow |  | there |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **come** | past | the people |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **look** | gerund | tailor *not said here* | tailor |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme he=Attribute |
| 4 | **read** | infinitive | tailor *not said here* |  |  | tailor's girdle |  | all, over *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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