---
title: Now when they came in sight of the castle, they did not know what to… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Now when they came in sight of the castle, they did not know what to do to get the little golden box. Who acts: birds. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack and His Golden Snuff-box, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Jack and His Golden Snuff-box, sentence 87

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Now when they came in sight of the castle, they did not know what to do to get the little golden box.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** birds · **What happens:** come, not know, do, get, sight · **To what, where:** sight, little golden box, castle · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack and His Golden Snuff-box. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (birds), 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:pg7439:20:87
# text = Now when they came in sight of the castle, they did not know what to do to get the little golden box.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	sight	sight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
15	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	17	obj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	advcl	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
21	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
22	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	box	box	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | birds *= bird* |  |  | sight of the castle | now |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in sight=Location |
| 2 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **do** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 4 | **get** | to-infinitive |  | the little golden box |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer box=Stimulus |
| 5 | **sight** |  |  | the castle |  |  |  |  | nom sight «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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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