---
title: On the instant the twelve youths appeared, and asked her what she co… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: On the instant the twelve youths appeared, and asked her what she commanded them to do. Who acts: twelve youths, feast. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Ring, 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/pg640/33/139/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Magic Ring, sentence 139

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On the instant the twelve youths appeared, and asked her what she commanded them to do.

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**Who acts:** twelve youths, feast · **What happens:** appear, ask, command, do · **To what, where:** instant, feast, words · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (twelve youths, feast), 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:pg640:33:139
# text = On the instant the twelve youths appeared, and asked her what she commanded them to do.
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	instant	instant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	twelve	twelve	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	nummod	_	_
6	youths	youth	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
7	appeared	appear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
11	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	iobj	_	_
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	obj	_	_
13	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	commanded	command	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **appear** | past | the twelve youths |  |  | the instant |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on instant=Location |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the twelve youths *not said here* |  | feast |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent she=Recipient |
| 3 | **command** | past | feast | words *= word* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **do** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | feast *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=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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