---
title: Very soon he could imitate the way all the people in the street walk… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Very soon he could imitate the way all the people in the street walked and talked. Who acts: frost, people. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/8/90/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 8, sentence 90

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Very soon he could imitate the way all the people in the street walked and talked.

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**Who acts:** frost, people · **What happens:** imitate, walk, talk · **To what, where:** way

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (frost, people), 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:pg5615:8:90
# text = Very soon he could imitate the way all the people in the street walked and talked.
1	Very	very	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	5	advmod	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	imitate	imitate	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	10	det:predet	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	street	street	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
14	walked	walk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	talked	talk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **imitate** | could | frost | the way |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn patent-101 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Theme |
| 2 | **walk** | past | all people in the street |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **talk** | past | all people in the street *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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