---
title: He groped about for some time, till he found the staircase in the to… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He groped about for some time, till he found the staircase in the tower, and then began to feel his way up the steps. Who acts: Hans. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Headless Dwarfs, sentence 22

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He groped about for some time, till he found the staircase in the tower, and then began to feel his way up the steps.

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**Who acts:** Hans · **What happens:** grope, find, begin, feel · **To what, where:** staircase, tower, way

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hans), 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:pg641:33:22
# text = He groped about for some time, till he found the staircase in the tower, and then began to feel his way up the steps.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	groped	grope	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	about	about	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	for	for	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	6	det	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	staircase	staircase	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	tower	tower	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	19	advmod	_	_
19	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	feel	feel	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
24	up	up	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grope** | past | Hans |  |  |  | time | about *property* | vn rummage-35.5-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **find** | past | Hans | the staircase |  | the tower |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent staircase=Topic |
| 3 | **begin** | past | Hans *not said here* |  |  |  | then |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **feel** | to-infinitive | Hans *not said here* | Hans's way |  |  |  | up the steps | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Theme |

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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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