---
title: After carefully locking the door, he lifted the cover, and there he… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: After carefully locking the door, he lifted the cover, and there he saw a white snake lying on the dish. Who acts: King, white snake. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The White Snake, sentence 7

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After carefully locking the door, he lifted the cover, and there he saw a white snake lying on the dish.

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**Who acts:** King, white snake · **What happens:** lock, lift, see, lie · **To what, where:** door, cover, white snake, dish

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King, white snake), 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:pg7277:50:7
# text = After carefully locking the door, he lifted the cover, and there he saw a white snake lying on the dish.
1	After	after	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	carefully	carefully	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	locking	lock	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	lifted	lift	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	cover	cover	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	15	expl	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	snake	snake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
19	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	acl	_	_
20	on	on	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	dish	dish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lock** | gerund | King *not said here* | the door |  |  |  | carefully *property* | vn tape-22.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent door=Patient |
| 2 | **lift** | past | King | the cover |  |  |  |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cover=Theme |
| 3 | **see** | past | King | a white snake |  | there |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer snake=Stimulus |
| 4 | **lie** | gerund | a white snake *not said here* |  |  | the dish |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on dish=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.

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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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