---
title: So they sailed back to the palace, and told the king what strange th… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So they sailed back to the palace, and told the king what strange things had happened. Who acts: sailors. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 20, sentence 18

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So they sailed back to the palace, and told the king what strange things had happened.

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**Who acts:** sailors · **What happens:** sail back, tell, happen · **To what, where:** palace, king · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sailors), 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:pg5615:20:18
# text = So they sailed back to the palace, and told the king what strange things had happened.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sailed	sail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	back	back	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	palace	palace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	17	nsubj	_	_
14	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sail back** | past | sailors *= sailor* |  |  | the palace |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent to palace=Trajectory |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | sailors *= sailor* *not said here* |  | the king |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent king=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **happen** | past · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 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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