---
title: Michael followed them, and waited behind the open door till they gav… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Michael followed them, and waited behind the open door till they gave the signal for departure. Who acts: Michael, princesses. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sentence 169

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Michael followed them, and waited behind the open door till they gave the signal for departure.

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**Who acts:** Michael, princesses · **What happens:** follow, wait, give · **To what, where:** princesses, open door, signal

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Michael, princesses), 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:pg540:2:169
# text = Michael followed them, and waited behind the open door till they gave the signal for departure.
1	Michael	Michael	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	followed	follow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	waited	wait	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
7	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
11	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	signal	signal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	departure	departure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **follow** | past | Michael | princesses *= princess* |  |  |  |  | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 2 | **wait** | past | Michael *not said here* |  |  | the open door |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme behind door=Location |
| 3 | **give** | past | princesses *= princess* | the signal |  |  |  | for departure | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.asset»: agent=Agent signal=Theme for departure=Asset |

<!-- .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 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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