---
title: His friends were much surprised to see him drive up without a coachm… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: His friends were much surprised to see him drive up without a coachman, and thought some accident had happened. Who acts: friends, minister, accident. 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 90

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His friends were much surprised to see him drive up without a coachman, and thought some accident had happened.

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**Who acts:** friends, minister, accident · **What happens:** be, see, drive up, think, happen · **To what, where:** minister · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (friends, minister, accident), 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:pg641:33:90
# text = His friends were much surprised to see him drive up without a coachman, and thought some accident had happened.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	friends	friend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	much	much	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	surprised	surprised	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	_
9	drive	drive	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	up	up	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	_
11	without	without	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	coachman	coachman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
17	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	18	det	_	_
18	accident	accident	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
19	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	16	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | minister's friends |  |  |  |  | surprised *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | to-infinitive | minister's friends *not said here* | minister |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **drive up** | infinitive | minister *not said here* |  |  |  |  | without a coachman | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **think** *speech: other* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 5 | **happen** | past · perfect | some accident |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=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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