---
title: But one day, while they were all sitting together round the table, h… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But one day, while they were all sitting together round the table, his wife suddenly started up, exclaiming in a loud voice: Who acts: people. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Voice of Death, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Voice of Death, sentence 17

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But one day, while they were all sitting together round the table, his wife suddenly started up, exclaiming in a loud voice:

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**Who acts:** people · **What happens:** sit, start up, exclaim · **To what, where:** one day, loud voice

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Voice of Death. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (people), 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:pg540:27:17
# text = But one day, while they were all sitting together round the table, his wife suddenly started up, exclaiming in a loud voice:
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
2	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
5	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
7	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	all	all	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	acl	_	_
10	together	together	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
11	round	round	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	table	table	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
17	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	up	up	ADP	RP	_	18	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	exclaiming	exclaim	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	18	advcl	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	loud	loud	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · progressive | people | one day and voice's wife *not said here* |  |  |  | round the table; all, together *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location day=Theme |
| 2 | **start up** | past |  |  |  |  | day | suddenly *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 3 | **exclaim** *speech: express* | gerund |  |  |  | a loud voice |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent |

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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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