---
title: He went towards it, and perceived before him an old castle, with the… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He went towards it, and perceived before him an old castle, with the door standing open. Who acts: John, door. 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 9

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He went towards it, and perceived before him an old castle, with the door standing open.

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**Who acts:** John, door · **What happens:** go, perceive, stand · **To what, where:** light, old castle

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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 (John, door), 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:pg7277:22:9
# text = He went towards it, and perceived before him an old castle, with the door standing open.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	towards	towards	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	perceived	perceive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
8	before	before	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obl	_	_
10	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
17	standing	stand	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	16	acl	_	_
18	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | John |  |  | light |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme towards it=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **perceive** | past | John *not said here* | a old castle |  |  | before John | with the door | vn see-30.1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer castle=Stimulus |
| 3 | **stand** | gerund | the door *not said here* |  |  |  |  | open *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: 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.

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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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