---
title: What he saw was creepier than creepy, and surpassed all he had ever… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: What he saw was creepier than creepy, and surpassed all he had ever dreamt of. Who acts: youth. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Young Man Who Would Have His Eyes Opened, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Young Man Who Would Have His Eyes Opened, sentence 21

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What he saw was creepier than creepy, and surpassed all he had ever dreamt of.

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**Who acts:** youth · **What happens:** see, be, surpass, dreamt

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Young Man Who Would Have His Eyes Opened. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (youth), 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:pg641:34:21
# text = What he saw was creepier than creepy, and surpassed all he had ever dreamt of.
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	nsubj	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	acl:relcl	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	creepier	creepy	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
6	than	than	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	creepy	creepy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	surpassed	surpass	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
11	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	15	advmod	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	15	advmod	_	_
15	dreamt	dreamt	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | youth |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | than creepy; creepy *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **surpass** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn exceed-90 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot |
| 4 | **dreamt** | past · perfect | youth |  |  |  | ever |  | tree rules |

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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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