---
title: The door was guarded by a great dragon, but as soon as he threw an a… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The door was guarded by a great dragon, but as soon as he threw an apple at it, the beast vanished. Who acts: great dragon, bird, beast. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), 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/pg640/22/53/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Glass Mountain(16), part 1, sentence 53

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The door was guarded by a great dragon, but as soon as he threw an apple at it, the beast vanished.

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**Who acts:** great dragon, bird, beast · **What happens:** guard, throw, vanish · **To what, where:** door, apple

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (great dragon, bird, beast), 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:pg640:22:53
# text = The door was guarded by a great dragon, but as soon as he threw an apple at it, the beast vanished.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	guarded	guard	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
11	as	as	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	15	advmod	_	_
13	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	threw	throw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
16	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	apple	apple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	beast	beast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
23	vanished	vanish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **guard** | past · passive | a great dragon | the door |  |  |  |  | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Beneficiary |
| 2 | **throw** | past | bird | a apple |  | door |  | soon *property* | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent apple=Theme at it=Destination |
| 3 | **vanish** | past | the beast |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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