---
title: He told them that he had seen in the middle of the sea the most wond… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He told them that he had seen in the middle of the sea the most wonderful house that ever was built. Who acts: cat. 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 67

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He told them that he had seen in the middle of the sea the most wonderful house that ever was built.

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**Who acts:** cat · **What happens:** tell, see, build · **To what, where:** crows, wonderful house, middle · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (cat), 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:pg7277:8:67
# text = He told them that he had seen in the middle of the sea the most wonderful house that ever was built.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	ccomp	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
15	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	16	advmod	_	_
16	wonderful	wonderful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
18	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	21	advmod	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	built	build	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	17	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | cat |  | crows *= crow* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **see** | past · perfect | cat | the wonderful house |  | the middle of the sea |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer house=Stimulus |
| 3 | **build** | past · passive |  | the wonderful house |  |  | ever |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product |

<!-- .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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