---
title: Now one night, when he was sitting on the grass beside his flocks, h… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Now one night, when he was sitting on the grass beside his flocks, he heard not very far from him the sound as of some one crying. Who acts: BOY. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 2, sentence 57

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Now one night, when he was sitting on the grass beside his flocks, he heard not very far from him the sound as of some one crying.

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**Who acts:** BOY · **What happens:** sit, hear, cry · **To what, where:** grass, sound

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), 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 (BOY), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg640:1010`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg640:15:57
# text = Now one night, when he was sitting on the grass beside his flocks, he heard not very far from him the sound as of some one crying.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	advmod	_	_
2	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	advcl	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	flocks	flock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	20	advmod	_	_
19	very	very	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	17	advmod	_	_
21	from	from	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
25	as	as	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	28	case	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	fixed	_	_
27	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	28	det	_	_
28	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	24	nmod	_	_
29	crying	cry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	28	acl	_	_
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · progressive | BOY |  |  | the grass |  | beside BOY's flocks | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on grass=Location |
| 2 | **hear** | past | BOY | the sound |  |  | now; night | as some one; far *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer sound=Stimulus |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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