---
title: His son, who happened to be standing by, heard the order, and he said: — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: His son, who happened to be standing by, heard the order, and he said: Who acts: son, sultan. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nunda, Eater of People, sentence 83

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
His son, who happened to be standing by, heard the order, and he said:

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**Who acts:** son, sultan · **What happens:** happen, stand by, hear, say · **To what, where:** order · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (son, sultan), 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:pg641:29:83
# text = His son, who happened to be standing by, heard the order, and he said:
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	nsubj	_	_
5	happened	happen	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	acl:relcl	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	aux	_	_
8	standing	stand	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
9	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
11	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	order	order	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **happen** | past | sultan's son |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **stand by** | to-infinitive · progressive | sultan's son *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **hear** | past | sultan's son | the order |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer order=Stimulus |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | sultan |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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