---
title: Then they put their eyes to the keyhole to see what had happened. — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then they put their eyes to the keyhole to see what had happened. Who acts: eyes. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Snake, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Enchanted Snake, sentence 38

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then they put their eyes to the keyhole to see what had happened.

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**Who acts:** eyes · **What happens:** put, see, happen · **To what, where:** eyes · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Snake. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eyes), 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:pg7277:25:38
# text = Then they put their eyes to the keyhole to see what had happened.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	put	put	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	keyhole	keyhole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	13	nsubj	_	_
12	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	happened	happen	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	10	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **put** | past | eyes *= eye* | eyes's eyes |  |  | then | to the keyhole | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent eye=Goal |
| 2 | **see** | to-infinitive | eyes *= eye* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **happen** | past · perfect |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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