---
title: The poor boy was very much frightened, as I am sure you and I would… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The poor boy was very much frightened, as I am sure you and I would have been in his place. Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Wonderful Growth of the Beanstalk, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Wonderful Growth of the Beanstalk, sentence 56

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The poor boy was very much frightened, as I am sure you and I would have been in his place.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** frighten, be · **To what, where:** poor boy, place

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Wonderful Growth of the Beanstalk. 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:pg540:16:56
# text = The poor boy was very much frightened, as I am sure you and I would have been in his place.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux:pass	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	much	much	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	frightened	frighten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	12	ccomp	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
16	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
17	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	aux	_	_
18	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	21	cop	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **frighten** | past · passive |  | the poor boy |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is** | present | I |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | would · perfect | I |  |  | boy's place |  |  | tree rules |

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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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