---
title: When they saw him they would be sure to make him dance too. — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When they saw him they would be sure to make him dance too. Who acts: dwarfs, doctor. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Hok Lee and the Dwarfs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/31/27/)

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Story of Hok Lee and the Dwarfs, sentence 27

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When they saw him they would be sure to make him dance too.

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**Who acts:** dwarfs, doctor · **What happens:** see, be, make, dance · **To what, where:** doctor

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Hok Lee and the Dwarfs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dwarfs, doctor), 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:pg7277:31:27
# text = When they saw him they would be sure to make him dance too.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
6	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	cop	_	_
8	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	dance	dance	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	too	too	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | dwarfs *= dwarf* | doctor |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is** | would | dwarfs *= dwarf* |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **make** | to-infinitive | dwarfs *= dwarf* *not said here* | doctor |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **dance** | infinitive | doctor *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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