---
title: When they saw Mark they told him what a strange thing they had found. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When they saw Mark they told him what a strange thing they had found. Who acts: crowns. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/4/32/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/4/) / 32

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars, sentence 32

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
When they saw Mark they told him what a strange thing they had found.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** crowns · **What happens:** see, tell, find · **To what, where:** Mark, strange thing · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (crowns), 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:pg641:4:32
# text = When they saw Mark they told him what a strange thing they had found.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
4	Mark	Mark	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	iobj	_	_
8	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	6	ccomp	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	found	find	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | crowns *= crown* | Mark |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer mark=Stimulus |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | crowns *= crown* |  | Mark |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |
| 3 | **find** | past · perfect | crowns *= crown* | a strange thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Topic |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/4/31/)
- next →: [sentence 33](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/4/33/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/4/)