---
title: Now it happened that they had floated close in to the shore, where a… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Now it happened that they had floated close in to the shore, where a poor old man lived all alone in a little cottage. Who acts: it, soles, poor old man. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Princess Rosette, sentence 211

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Now it happened that they had floated close in to the shore, where a poor old man lived all alone in a little cottage.

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**Who acts:** it, soles, poor old man · **What happens:** happen, float, live · **To what, where:** shore

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Princess Rosette. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (it, soles, poor old man), 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:pg540:11:211
# text = Now it happened that they had floated close in to the shore, where a poor old man lived all alone in a little cottage.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	floated	float	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
8	close	close	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	7	advmod	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	shore	shore	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	19	advmod	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
16	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	_
20	all	all	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	alone	alone	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	xcomp	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	cottage	cottage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | past | it |  |  |  | now |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **float** | past · perfect | soles *= sole* |  |  | the shore |  | close *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in shore=Trajectory |
| 3 | **live** | past | a poor old man |  |  |  |  | alone *property* | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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