---
title: At last he reached a country where he was told that the people did n… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At last he reached a country where he was told that the people did not even know the meaning of the word death. Who acts: man, 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 6

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At last he reached a country where he was told that the people did not even know the meaning of the word death.

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**Who acts:** man, people · **What happens:** reach, tell, not know, mean · **To what, where:** country, last, man, meaning, word death · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (man, 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:pg540:27:6
# text = At last he reached a country where he was told that the people did not even know the meaning of the word death.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	last	last	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	10	advmod	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl:relcl	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
14	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
16	even	even	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	meaning	meaning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	word	word	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	compound	_	_
23	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reach** | past | man | a country |  | last |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.source NP.asset»: agent=Agent country=Theme at last=Asset |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · passive |  | man |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | the people | the meaning of the word death |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer meaning=Stimulus |
| 4 | **mean** |  |  | the word death |  |  |  |  | nom meaning «communication 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.

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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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