---
title: On the first landing a glimmer of light came through a slit in the w… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: On the first landing a glimmer of light came through a slit in the wall, and he saw a tiny man sitting there, without a head. Who acts: glimmer, tiny man, light. 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 23

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
On the first landing a glimmer of light came through a slit in the wall, and he saw a tiny man sitting there, without a head.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** glimmer, tiny man, light · **What happens:** come, see, sit, glimmer · **To what, where:** first landing, tiny man

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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 (glimmer, tiny man, light), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg641:33:23
# text = On the first landing a glimmer of light came through a slit in the wall, and he saw a tiny man sitting there, without a head.
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	4	amod	_	_
4	landing	landing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	glimmer	glimmer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
9	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	through	through	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	slit	slit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	wall	wall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
23	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	22	acl	_	_
24	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	23	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
26	without	without	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | a glimmer of light |  |  | the first landing |  | through a slit in the wall | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme through slit=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **see** | past | glimmer | a tiny man |  |  |  | without a head | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer man=Stimulus |
| 3 | **sit** | gerund | a tiny man *not said here* |  |  | there |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **glimmer** |  | light |  |  |  |  |  | nom glimmer «event intransitive»: of=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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