---
title: He found them all three sitting on the stairs, while beside them the… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He found them all three sitting on the stairs, while beside them the beer was running all over the ground from the tap, which was wide open. Who acts: lover, names, beer, tap. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Sillies, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cla
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Six Sillies, sentence 16

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He found them all three sitting on the stairs, while beside them the beer was running all over the ground from the tap, which was wide open.

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**Who acts:** lover, names, beer, tap · **What happens:** find, sit, run, be · **To what, where:** names, stairs, ground

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Six Sillies. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lover, names, beer, tap), 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:pg540:28:16
# text = He found them all three sitting on the stairs, while beside them the beer was running all over the ground from the tap, which was wide open.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	found	find	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	_	_
4	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	5	det	_	_
5	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	obj	_	_
6	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	xcomp	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	stairs	stair	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
11	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
12	beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	beer	beer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	running	run	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	_
18	all	all	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
19	over	over	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
22	from	from	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	tap	tap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
26	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	29	nsubj	_	_
27	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	cop	_	_
28	wide	wide	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	advmod	_	_
29	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **find** | past | lover | names *= name* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit** | gerund | names *= name* *not said here* |  |  | the stairs |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on stair=Location |
| 3 | **run** | past · progressive | the beer |  |  | the ground |  | beside names *= name*; from the tap | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme beside they=Trajectory |
| 4 | **is** | past | the tap |  |  |  |  | open *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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