---
title: While he hesitated the nixy spoke, called him by his name, and asked… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: While he hesitated the nixy spoke, called him by his name, and asked him why he was so sad. Who acts: miller, nixy. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide World, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide World, part 2, sentence 79

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While he hesitated the nixy spoke, called him by his name, and asked him why he was so sad.

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**Who acts:** miller, nixy · **What happens:** hesitate, speak, call, ask, be, name · **To what, where:** nixy, miller · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide World, 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 (miller, nixy), 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:pg640:20:79
# text = While he hesitated the nixy spoke, called him by his name, and asked him why he was so sad.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	hesitated	hesitate	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	nixy	nixy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	by	by	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	iobj	_	_
17	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	21	advmod	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
20	so	so	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hesitate** | past | miller | the nixy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | the nixy *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **call** | participle |  | the nixy *not said here* | miller |  |  | by miller's name | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 4 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | miller *not said here* |  | miller |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 5 | **is** | past | miller |  |  |  |  | sad *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **name** |  | miller |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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