---
title: But he was on the watch for trickery, and examined it carefully, and… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But he was on the watch for trickery, and examined it carefully, and saw that it had no power to heal. Who acts: man, watch. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 23, 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/pg5615/23/100/)

<!-- 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 Pink Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/) / [The Pink Fairy Book, part 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/23/) / 100

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 23, sentence 100

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But he was on the watch for trickery, and examined it carefully, and saw that it had no power to heal.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** man, watch · **What happens:** be, examine, see, have, heal · **To what, where:** watch, trickery, power · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, watch), 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:pg5615:23:100
# text = But he was on the watch for trickery, and examined it carefully, and saw that it had no power to heal.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	watch	watch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
7	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	trickery	trickery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	examined	examine	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	carefully	carefully	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
17	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	ccomp	_	_
20	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	21	det	_	_
21	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	heal	heal	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | man |  |  | the watch |  | for trickery | tree rules |
| 2 | **examine** | past | the watch | trickery |  |  |  | carefully *property* | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **see** | past | the watch *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **have** | past | watch | no power |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent power=Patient |
| 5 | **heal** | to-infinitive | watch *not said here* | no power *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 99](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/23/99/)
- next →: [sentence 101](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/23/101/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/23/)