---
title: He was turning aside to avoid it, when he heard the sound of someone… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He was turning aside to avoid it, when he heard the sound of someone crying in the ditch. Who acts: Prince. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Flower Queen’s Daughter(23), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Flower Queen’s Daughter(23), sentence 4

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He was turning aside to avoid it, when he heard the sound of someone crying in the ditch.

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**Who acts:** Prince · **What happens:** turn, avoid, hear, cry · **To what, where:** meadow, sound, ditch

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Flower Queen’s Daughter(23). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince), 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:pg640:34:4
# text = He was turning aside to avoid it, when he heard the sound of someone crying in the ditch.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	turning	turn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	aside	aside	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	avoid	avoid	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	someone	someone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	13	nmod	_	_
16	crying	cry	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	acl	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	ditch	ditch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **turn** | past · progressive | Prince |  |  |  |  | aside *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **avoid** | to-infinitive | Prince *not said here* | meadow |  |  |  |  | vn avoid-52 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent it=Location |
| 3 | **hear** | past | Prince | the sound of someone |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer sound=Stimulus |
| 4 | **cry** *speech: express* | gerund |  |  |  | the ditch |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in ditch=Location |

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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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