---
title: Then he heard a voice, and before him stood a messenger, who said: — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: Then he heard a voice, and before him stood a messenger, who said: Who acts: life, messenger. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 8, 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/pg65965/8/111/)

<!-- 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 Jade Story Book; Stories from the…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/) / [Opening, part 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/8/) / 111

# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 8, sentence 111

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then he heard a voice, and before him stood a messenger, who said:

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** life, messenger · **What happens:** hear, stand, say · **To what, where:** voice, messenger · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (life, messenger), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:8:113
# text = Then he heard a voice, and before him stood a messenger, who said:
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	messenger	messenger	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | life | a voice |  |  | then |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer voice=Stimulus |
| 2 | **stand** | past | life | a messenger |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer messenger=Stimulus |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a messenger |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (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 110](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/8/110/)
- next →: [sentence 112](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/8/112/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/8/)