---
title: The wise man was sitting before his door when he came up, and Stan f… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The wise man was sitting before his door when he came up, and Stan fell on his knees before him. Who acts: wise man, man, Stan. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Stan Bolovan, sentence 26

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The wise man was sitting before his door when he came up, and Stan fell on his knees before him.

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**Who acts:** wise man, man, Stan · **What happens:** sit, come up, fall · **To what, where:** door, knees

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wise man, man, Stan), 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:pg641:13:26
# text = The wise man was sitting before his door when he came up, and Stan fell on his knees before him.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	wise	wise	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	before	before	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
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	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
12	up	up	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	Stan	Stan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	knees	knee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	_
20	before	before	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past · progressive | the wise man |  |  | man's door |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before door=Location |
| 2 | **come up** | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **fall** | past | Stan |  |  | Stan's knees | before man |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on knee=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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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