---
title: This he found without much difficulty, but the horses were all so sh… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: This he found without much difficulty, but the horses were all so shy that they galloped away directly he approached them. Who acts: This, horses, man. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Knife, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Enchanted Knife, sentence 24

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This he found without much difficulty, but the horses were all so shy that they galloped away directly he approached them.

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**Who acts:** This, horses, man · **What happens:** find, be, gallop away, approach · **To what, where:** horses

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Knife. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, horses, man), 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:pg641:23:24
# text = This he found without much difficulty, but the horses were all so shy that they galloped away directly he approached them.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	nsubj	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	without	without	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	difficulty	difficulty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	horses	horse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	all	all	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	so	so	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	shy	shy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	parataxis	_	_
15	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	galloped	gallop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	_
18	away	away	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
19	directly	directly	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	approached	approach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
22	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **find** | past | This |  |  |  |  | without much difficulty | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past | the horses |  |  |  |  | all, shy *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **gallop away** | past | horses *= horse* |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **approach** | past | man | horses *= horse* |  |  |  | directly *property* | vn confront-98 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=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 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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