---
title: Then the old man went down on his knees before the King and begged f… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the old man went down on his knees before the King and begged for time to tell him everything. Who acts: 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 253

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Then the old man went down on his knees before the King and begged for time to tell him everything.

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**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** go down, beg, tell · **To what, where:** knees, everything, Minister · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (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:pg540:11:253
# text = Then the old man went down on his knees before the King and begged for time to tell him everything.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	down	down	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	knees	knee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
10	before	before	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	advcl	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	iobj	_	_
20	everything	everything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go down** | past | the old man |  |  | Minister's knees | before the King; then | down *property* | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on knee=Location |
| 2 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | the old man *not said here* |  |  |  | time |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V PP.Topic»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | the old man *not said here* | everything | Minister |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient everything=Topic |

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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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