---
title: An old man with a white beard was sitting on the doorstep enjoying t… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: An old man with a white beard was sitting on the doorstep enjoying the fresh air. Who acts: old man. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Canary, sentence 39

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An old man with a white beard was sitting on the doorstep enjoying the fresh air.

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**Who acts:** old man · **What happens:** sit, enjoy · **To what, where:** doorstep, fresh air

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Canary. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man), 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:pg540:40:39
# text = An old man with a white beard was sitting on the doorstep enjoying the fresh air.
1	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
4	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	beard	beard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	doorstep	doorstep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	enjoying	enjoy	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	fresh	fresh	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · progressive | a old man with a white beard |  |  | the doorstep |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on doorstep=Location |
| 2 | **enjoy** | gerund | a old man with a white beard *not said here* | the fresh air |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer air=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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