---
title: I walked toward the coast, where, lying down behind a hillock, I too… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I walked toward the coast, where, lying down behind a hillock, I took out my spy-glass, and viewed the enemy’s fleet at anchor--about fifty men-of-war, and other vessels. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Chapter IV, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Chapter IV, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
I walked toward the coast, where, lying down behind a hillock, I took out my spy-glass, and viewed the enemy’s fleet at anchor--about fifty men-of-war, and other vessels.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** walk, lie down, take out, view · **To what, where:** coast, hillock, spy glass, fleet, anchor

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Chapter IV. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg503:46:4
# text = I walked toward the coast, where, lying down behind a hillock, I took out my spy-glass, and viewed the enemy’s fleet at anchor--about fifty men-of-war, and other vessels.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	walked	walk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	toward	toward	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	coast	coast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
10	down	down	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	hillock	hillock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
17	out	out	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
19	spy	spy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	glass	glass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	viewed	view	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	enemy	enemy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	’s	's	PART	POS	_	26	case	_	_
28	fleet	fleet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	_
29	at	at	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	anchor	anchor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	about	about	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	_
33	fifty	fifty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	34	nummod	_	_
34	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	30	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	38	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	of	of	ADP	IN	_	38	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
37	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	36	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	war	war	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
39	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	42	punct	_	_
40	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	42	cc	_	_
41	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	42	amod	_	_
42	vessels	vessel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
43	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **walk** | past | I |  |  | the coast |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme toward coast=Trajectory |
| 2 | **lie down** | gerund | I *not said here* |  |  | a hillock |  | down *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent behind hillock=Location |
| 3 | **take out** | past | I | my spy glass |  |  |  | other vessels *obl* | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent glass=Theme |
| 4 | **view** | past | I *not said here* | the enemy's fleet |  | anchor and fifty men of war |  |  | vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer fleet=Stimulus |

<!-- .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.

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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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- ↑ back to [Chapter IV](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/46/)