---
title: As he drew near it he heard someone singing so sweetly that he stood… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As he drew near it he heard someone singing so sweetly that he stood still spell-bound, and listened. Who acts: Prince. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Brothers, sentence 123

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As he drew near it he heard someone singing so sweetly that he stood still spell-bound, and listened.

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**Who acts:** Prince · **What happens:** draw, hear, sing, stand, listen · **To what, where:** tower, someone, spell bound

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Brothers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince), 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:pg540:41:123
# text = As he drew near it he heard someone singing so sweetly that he stood still spell-bound, and listened.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	drew	draw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
4	near	near	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	someone	someone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	7	obj	_	_
9	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
10	so	so	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	sweetly	sweetly	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
15	still	still	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
16	spell	spell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	bound	bound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	listened	listen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **draw** | past | Prince |  |  | tower |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **hear** | past | Prince | someone |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer someone=Stimulus |
| 3 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | sweetly *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **stand** | past | Prince | spell bound |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **listen** | past | Prince *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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