---
title: He had been absent ten whole years, but he too knew no more than the… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He had been absent ten whole years, but he too knew no more than the rest. Who acts: eagle. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Princesses of Whiteland, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Three Princesses of Whiteland, sentence 61

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He had been absent ten whole years, but he too knew no more than the rest.

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**Who acts:** eagle · **What happens:** be, know · **To what, where:** more

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Princesses of Whiteland. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eagle), 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:pg540:26:61
# text = He had been absent ten whole years, but he too knew no more than the rest.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	cop	_	_
4	absent	absent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
6	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	too	too	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
13	no	no	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	12	obj	_	_
15	than	than	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	rest	rest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past · perfect | eagle |  |  |  | year | absent *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **know** | past | eagle | more |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer more=Stimulus |

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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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