---
title: But before he had gone far his friend the wolf stood before him and… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But before he had gone far his friend the wolf stood before him and said, ‘Dear Prince, why are you so cast down? Who acts: horse, wolf, you. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Mermaid, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Mermaid, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But before he had gone far his friend the wolf stood before him and said, ‘Dear Prince, why are you so cast down?

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**Who acts:** horse, wolf, you · **What happens:** go, stand, say, be · **To what, where:** friend · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Mermaid. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (horse, wolf, you), 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:pg7277:52:39
# text = But before he had gone far his friend the wolf stood before him and said, ‘Dear Prince, why are you so cast down?
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
2	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	gone	go	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
6	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	8	advmod	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	wolf	wolf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	before	before	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	Dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	25	advmod	_	_
22	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
23	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
24	so	so	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	cast	cast	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
26	down	down	ADP	RP	_	25	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past · perfect | horse | horse's friend |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **stand** | past | the wolf |  |  |  | before horse |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before he=Location |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the wolf *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | present | you |  |  |  |  | cast *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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