---
title: Things were in this state when he was invited to visit the court of… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Things were in this state when he was invited to visit the court of his father’s cousin, King Bardondon. Who acts: Things, Prince. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Watch, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Enchanted Watch, sentence 131

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Things were in this state when he was invited to visit the court of his father’s cousin, King Bardondon.

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**Who acts:** Things, Prince · **What happens:** be, invite, visit · **To what, where:** state, Prince, court

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Watch. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Things, Prince), 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:pg7277:8:131
# text = Things were in this state when he was invited to visit the court of his father’s cousin, King Bardondon.
1	Things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	state	state	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	invited	invite	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl:relcl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	visit	visit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	court	court	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’s	's	PART	POS	_	16	case	_	_
18	cousin	cousin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
20	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	appos	_	_
21	Bardondon	Bardondon	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Things |  |  | this state |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **invite** | past · passive |  | Prince |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **visit** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Prince *not said here* | the court of Prince's father's cousin |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent court=Co-Agent |

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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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