---
title: When they had gone the poor Simpleton began to tease his mother to s… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When they had gone the poor Simpleton began to tease his mother to smarten him up and let him start off. Who acts: brothers, poor Simpleton, Simpleton. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Flying Ship(24), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Flying Ship(24), sentence 7

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When they had gone the poor Simpleton began to tease his mother to smarten him up and let him start off.

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**Who acts:** brothers, poor Simpleton, Simpleton · **What happens:** go, begin, tease, smarten up, let, start off · **To what, where:** mother, Simpleton

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Flying Ship(24). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brothers, poor Simpleton, Simpleton), 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:pg640:35:7
# text = When they had gone the poor Simpleton began to tease his mother to smarten him up and let him start off.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	gone	go	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	Simpleton	Simpleton	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	tease	tease	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	smarten	smarten	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	advcl	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	up	up	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	conj	_	_
19	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	start	start	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
21	off	off	ADP	RP	_	20	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past · perfect | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **begin** | past | the poor Simpleton |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **tease** | to-infinitive | the poor Simpleton *not said here* | Simpleton's mother |  |  |  |  | vn bully-59.5 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mother=Patient |
| 4 | **smarten up** | to-infinitive | the poor Simpleton *not said here* | Simpleton |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent he=Patient |
| 5 | **let** | infinitive | the poor Simpleton *not said here* | Simpleton |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **start off** | infinitive | Simpleton *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

<!-- .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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