---
title: When these things happened Saphir was about eighteen years old, and… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When these things happened Saphir was about eighteen years old, and fifteen years had passed away since the death of his mother. Who acts: things, Saphir, mother. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cl
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/11/31/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2, sentence 31

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When these things happened Saphir was about eighteen years old, and fifteen years had passed away since the death of his mother.

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**Who acts:** things, Saphir, mother · **What happens:** happen, be, pass away, die · **To what, where:** fifteen years

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (things, Saphir, mother), 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:pg640:11:31
# text = When these things happened Saphir was about eighteen years old, and fifteen years had passed away since the death of his mother.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	3	det	_	_
3	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
5	Saphir	Saphir	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
7	about	about	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	eighteen	eighteen	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
9	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl:unmarked	_	_
10	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	fifteen	fifteen	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	passed	pass	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	conj	_	_
17	away	away	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
18	since	since	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | past | this things |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past | Saphir |  |  |  | year | old *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **pass away** | past · perfect · passive |  | fifteen years |  |  | since the death of Saphir's mother | away *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **die** |  | Saphir's mother |  |  |  |  |  | nom death «event intransitive»: of=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 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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