---
title: The poor man screamed terribly, and the colonel and his officers wer… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The poor man screamed terribly, and the colonel and his officers were much distressed, especially when they saw me take out my penknife. Who acts: poor man, officers, me. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Chapter II, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/44/4/)

<!-- 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/) / [Chapter II](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/44/) / 4

# The Blue Fairy Book, Chapter II, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The poor man screamed terribly, and the colonel and his officers were much distressed, especially when they saw me take out my penknife.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** poor man, officers, me · **What happens:** scream, distress, see, take out · **To what, where:** colonel, me, penknife

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Chapter II. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor man, officers, me), 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:pg503:44:4
# text = The poor man screamed terribly, and the colonel and his officers were much distressed, especially when they saw me take out my penknife.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	screamed	scream	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	terribly	terribly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	colonel	colonel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	officers	officer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	conj	_	_
13	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux:pass	_	_
14	much	much	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	distressed	distress	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	especially	especially	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
18	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	20	advmod	_	_
19	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
21	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	_
22	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	xcomp	_	_
23	out	out	ADP	RP	_	22	compound:prt	_	_
24	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	penknife	penknife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **scream** *speech: express* | past | the poor man |  |  |  |  | terribly *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **distress** | past · passive |  | the colonel and colonel's officers |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 3 | **see** | past | officers *= officer* | me |  |  |  | especially *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **take out** | infinitive | me *not said here* | my penknife |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent penknife=Theme |

<!-- .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 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/44/3/)
- next →: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/44/5/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter II](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/44/)