---
title: After a while it began to open its eyes. — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: After a while it began to open its eyes. Who acts: box. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Fairy Ointment, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Fairy Ointment, sentence 9

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After a while it began to open its eyes.

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**Who acts:** box · **What happens:** begin, open · **To what, where:** eyes

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Fairy Ointment. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (box), 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:pg7439:46:9
# text = After a while it began to open its eyes.
1	After	after	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	while	while	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	open	open	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | box |  |  |  | while |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **open** | to-infinitive | box *not said here* | box's eyes |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location eye=Theme |

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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:** «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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