---
title: Being in great fear and not knowing how to pass, I fired a pistol at… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Being in great fear and not knowing how to pass, I fired a pistol at him, and he immediately fell across the entrance. Who acts: I, man. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen., sentence 94

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Being in great fear and not knowing how to pass, I fired a pistol at him, and he immediately fell across the entrance.

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**Who acts:** I, man · **What happens:** be, not know, pass, fire, fall · **To what, where:** great fear, pistol, entrance

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, 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:pg540:8:94
# text = Being in great fear and not knowing how to pass, I fired a pistol at him, and he immediately fell across the entrance.
1	Being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	cop	_	_
2	in	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	fear	fear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	knowing	know	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
8	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	10	advmod	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	pass	pass	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
12	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	fired	fire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	pistol	pistol	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	at	at	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	immediately	immediately	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
23	across	across	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	entrance	entrance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | gerund |  |  |  | great fear |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **know** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **pass** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **fire** | past | I | a pistol |  |  |  | at man | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent pistol=Theme at he=Destination |
| 5 | **fall** | past | man |  |  | the entrance |  | immediately *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme across entrance=Initial\_Location |

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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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