---
title: As he was following on the steps of the Princess Lina, he carelessly… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As he was following on the steps of the Princess Lina, he carelessly trod on her dress. Who acts: Michael. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/62/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Twelve Dancing Princesses](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/) / 62

# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sentence 62

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
As he was following on the steps of the Princess Lina, he carelessly trod on her dress.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Michael · **What happens:** follow, tread, step · **To what, where:** dress, Princess Lina

<!-- .vabout -->
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), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg540:2:62
# text = As he was following on the steps of the Princess Lina, he carelessly trod on her dress.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	following	follow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	advcl	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	Princess	Princess	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	Lina	Lina	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	carelessly	carelessly	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	trod	tread	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	dress	dress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **follow** | past · progressive | Michael |  |  |  |  | on the steps of the Princess Lina | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on step=Location |
| 2 | **tread** | past | Michael |  |  | Lina's dress |  | carelessly *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on dress=Trajectory |
| 3 | **step** |  |  | the Princess Lina |  |  |  |  | nom step «act transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 61](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/61/)
- next →: [sentence 63](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/63/)
- ↑ back to [The Twelve Dancing Princesses](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/2/)