---
title: He put his pipe in his pocket and knocked gently, saying politely: — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He put his pipe in his pocket and knocked gently, saying politely: Who acts: soldier. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Little Soldier, sentence 11

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He put his pipe in his pocket and knocked gently, saying politely:

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**Who acts:** soldier · **What happens:** put, knock, say · **To what, where:** pipe, pocket · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (soldier), 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:pg7277:22:11
# text = He put his pipe in his pocket and knocked gently, saying politely:
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	pipe	pipe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	pocket	pocket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	knocked	knock	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
10	gently	gently	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
13	politely	politely	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **put** | past | soldier | soldier's pipe |  | soldier's pocket |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent pipe=Theme in pocket=Destination |
| 2 | **knock** | past | soldier *not said here* |  |  |  |  | gently *property* | vn split-23.2 «NP V apart»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | soldier *not said here* |  |  |  |  | politely *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that 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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