---
title: But the real reason was that he had caught sight of the lovely face. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the real reason was that he had caught sight of the lovely face. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 1, 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/pg640/10/28/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Donkey Cabbage, part 1, sentence 28

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But the real reason was that he had caught sight of the lovely face.

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**What happens:** catch, sight · **To what, where:** real reason, lovely face

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg640:10:28
# text = But the real reason was that he had caught sight of the lovely face.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	reason	reason	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	caught	catch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
10	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	lovely	lovely	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **catch** | past · perfect · passive |  | the real reason |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: subject=Beneficiary sight=Theme |
| 2 | **sight** |  |  | the lovely face |  |  |  |  | nom sight «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

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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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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