---
title: About this time the King of a very powerful kingdom was carrying on… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: About this time the King of a very powerful kingdom was carrying on a war; the youth therefore took service under him and went on the campaign. Who acts: King, youth. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Snake-leaves, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cla
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/46/4/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The Three Snake-leaves](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/46/) / 4

# The Green Fairy Book, The Three Snake-leaves, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
About this time the King of a very powerful kingdom was carrying on a war; the youth therefore took service under him and went on the campaign.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** King, youth · **What happens:** carry, take, go · **To what, where:** war, service, campaign

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Snake-leaves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, youth), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7277:46:4
# text = About this time the King of a very powerful kingdom was carrying on a war; the youth therefore took service under him and went on the campaign.
1	About	about	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	det	_	_
3	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
8	very	very	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	powerful	powerful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	kingdom	kingdom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	carrying	carry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	war	war	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
19	therefore	therefore	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	parataxis	_	_
21	service	service	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
22	under	under	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	conj	_	_
26	on	on	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	campaign	campaign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **carry** | past · progressive | the King of a powerful kingdom |  |  | a war | time |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **take** | past | the youth | service |  |  |  | under King; therefore *property* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent service=Theme |
| 3 | **go** | past | the youth *not said here* |  |  | the campaign |  |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on campaign=Location |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/46/3/)
- next →: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/46/5/)
- ↑ back to [The Three Snake-leaves](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/46/)