---
title: He had gone out once to seek a place, he said, but never would he do… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He had gone out once to seek a place, he said, but never would he do such a thing again. Who acts: state. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Seven Foals, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/26/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Red Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/) / [The Seven Foals](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/) / 26

# The Red Fairy Book, The Seven Foals, sentence 26

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He had gone out once to seek a place, he said, but never would he do such a thing again.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** state · **What happens:** go out, seek, say, not do · **To what, where:** place, thing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Seven Foals. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (state), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg540:49:26
# text = He had gone out once to seek a place, he said, but never would he do such a thing again.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	gone	go	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	out	out	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	3	advmod	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	seek	seek	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
16	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
19	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	21	det:predet	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
22	again	again	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go out** | past · perfect | state |  |  |  |  | once *property* | vn interact-36.6 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **seek** | to-infinitive | state *not said here* | a place |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent place=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | state |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **not** **do** | would | state | such thing |  |  | again |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Eventuality |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 25](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/25/)
- next →: [sentence 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/27/)
- ↑ back to [The Seven Foals](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/49/)