---
title: He had formed no plan, and there was no reason that he should choose… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He had formed no plan, and there was no reason that he should choose one path more than another. Who acts: bird, reason. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Donkey Cabbage, part 2, sentence 51

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He had formed no plan, and there was no reason that he should choose one path more than another.

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**Who acts:** bird, reason · **What happens:** form, be, choose · **To what, where:** plan, one path

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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 (bird, reason), 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:pg640:11:51
# text = He had formed no plan, and there was no reason that he should choose one path more than another.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	formed	form	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	5	det	_	_
5	plan	plan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	9	expl	_	_
9	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
10	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	11	det	_	_
11	reason	reason	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	choose	choose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	acl	_	_
16	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	_
17	path	path	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	17	amod	_	_
19	than	than	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **form** | past · perfect | bird | no plan |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location plan=Theme |
| 2 | **be** | past | no reason |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **choose** | should | bird | one path |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent path=Theme |

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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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