---
title: Thereupon he ordered the oxen to go about their business, and they b… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Thereupon he ordered the oxen to go about their business, and they bounded off like stags, and were out of sight in a moment. Who acts: thing, oxen. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla, sentence 125

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Thereupon he ordered the oxen to go about their business, and they bounded off like stags, and were out of sight in a moment.

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**Who acts:** thing, oxen · **What happens:** order, go, bound off, be · **To what, where:** oxen, sight

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (thing, oxen), 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:pg7277:11:125
# text = Thereupon he ordered the oxen to go about their business, and they bounded off like stags, and were out of sight in a moment.
1	Thereupon	thereupon	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	ordered	order	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	oxen	ox	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
8	about	about	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	business	business	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	bounded	bound	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
15	off	off	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	like	like	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	stags	stag	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
21	out	out	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **order** | past | thing | the oxen |  |  |  | thereupon *property* | vn order-58.3-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent ox=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **go** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the oxen *not said here* |  |  |  |  | about oxen's business | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme about business=Location |
| 3 | **bound off** | past | oxen *= ox* |  |  |  |  | like stags | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | past |  |  |  | sight | moment |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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