---
title: One day, as he was walking along, he picked up a snuff-box. — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: One day, as he was walking along, he picked up a snuff-box. 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 2

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One day, as he was walking along, he picked up a snuff-box.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** walk, pick up · **To what, where:** snuff box

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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:pg7277:20:2
# text = One day, as he was walking along, he picked up a snuff-box.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
4	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	walking	walk	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	conj	_	_
8	along	along	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	picked	pick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	up	up	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
14	snuff	snuff	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	box	box	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **walk** | past · progressive | man |  |  |  |  | along *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **pick up** | past | man | a snuff box |  |  | day |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent box=Topic |

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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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