---
title: As they came back they met the shoemaker, and stared at him with ope… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As they came back they met the shoemaker, and stared at him with open mouths. Who acts: robbers. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 17, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 146

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As they came back they met the shoemaker, and stared at him with open mouths.

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**Who acts:** robbers · **What happens:** come back, meet, stare · **To what, where:** shoemaker

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (robbers), 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:pg5615:17:146
# text = As they came back they met the shoemaker, and stared at him with open mouths.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
4	back	back	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	shoemaker	shoemaker	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	stared	stare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	mouths	mouth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come back** | past | robbers *= robber* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **meet** | past | robbers *= robber* | the shoemaker |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent shoemaker=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **stare** | past | robbers *= robber* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at swineherd; with open mouths | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at he=Theme |

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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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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