---
title: Near him stood a long thin man, holding in his hand a young fir tree… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Near him stood a long thin man, holding in his hand a young fir tree taller than himself. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Underground Workers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Underground Workers, sentence 8

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Near him stood a long thin man, holding in his hand a young fir tree taller than himself.

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**What happens:** stand, hold · **To what, where:** long thin man, young fir tree, hand

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Underground Workers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg641:25:8
# text = Near him stood a long thin man, holding in his hand a young fir tree taller than himself.
1	Near	near	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	_
3	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	thin	thin	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
14	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
15	fir	fir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
17	taller	tall	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	16	amod	_	_
18	than	than	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	17	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 | **stand** | past |  | a long thin man |  |  |  | near sleeper | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent man=Theme near he=Destination |
| 2 | **hold** | gerund |  | a young fir tree |  | sleeper's hand |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent tree=Theme in hand=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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