---
title: He had already taken a few steps on the way again, when the old woma… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He had already taken a few steps on the way again, when the old woman called him back. Who acts: Jesper, old woman. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, sentence 67

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He had already taken a few steps on the way again, when the old woman called him back.

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**Who acts:** Jesper, old woman · **What happens:** take, call back · **To what, where:** few steps, way, Jesper

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Jesper, old woman), 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:pg641:24:67
# text = He had already taken a few steps on the way again, when the old woman called him back.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	already	already	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	taken	take	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
11	again	again	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	back	back	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past · perfect | Jesper | a few steps |  | the way | again |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent step=Theme on way=Destination |
| 2 | **call back** *speech: assert* | past | the old woman |  | Jesper |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |

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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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