---
title: He had scarcely finished speaking when there stood in front of him,… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He had scarcely finished speaking when there stood in front of him, exactly opposite the King’s palace, a castle built precisely as he had ordered. Who acts: man. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Snuff-box, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Snuff-box, sentence 19

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He had scarcely finished speaking when there stood in front of him, exactly opposite the King’s palace, a castle built precisely as he had ordered.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** finish, speak, stand, build, order · **To what, where:** front, castle · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Snuff-box. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg7277:20:19
# text = He had scarcely finished speaking when there stood in front of him, exactly opposite the King’s palace, a castle built precisely as he had ordered.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	finished	finish	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	speaking	speak	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	xcomp	_	_
6	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
7	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	8	expl	_	_
8	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	exactly	exactly	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
15	opposite	opposite	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’s	's	PART	POS	_	17	case	_	_
19	palace	palace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	conj	_	_
23	built	build	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	22	acl	_	_
24	precisely	precisely	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
25	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	28	mark	_	_
26	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	nsubj	_	_
27	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
28	ordered	order	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	23	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **finish** | past · perfect | man |  |  |  |  | scarcely *property* | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | gerund | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | opposite the King's palace and a castle | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **stand** | past | man *not said here* |  |  | front of man; there |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in front=Location |
| 4 | **build** | participle |  | a castle *not said here* |  |  |  | precisely *property* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 5 | **order** | past · perfect | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn order-58.3-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent |

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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 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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