---
title: About this time he chanced to send his steward into the city to buy… — Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of F… · tree and pragmatics
description: About this time he chanced to send his steward into the city to buy provisions. Who acts: Duke. A sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, Of the End of the False Duke Macaire, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France, Of the End of the False Duke Macaire, sentence 21

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About this time he chanced to send his steward into the city to buy provisions.

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**Who acts:** Duke · **What happens:** chance, send, buy · **To what, where:** steward, city, provisions

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This is a sentence of «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, Of the End of the False Duke Macaire. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Duke), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg75339:40:21
# text = About this time he chanced to send his steward into the city to buy provisions.
1	About	about	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	det	_	_
3	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	chanced	chance	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	send	send	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	steward	steward	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	into	into	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	buy	buy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	_
15	provisions	provision	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **chance** | past | Duke |  |  |  | time |  | vn risk-94-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **send** | to-infinitive | Duke *not said here* | Duke's steward |  | the city |  |  | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent steward=Theme |
| 3 | **buy** | to-infinitive | Duke *not said here* | provisions |  |  |  |  | vn accept-77.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent provision=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:** «Stories of Charlemagne and the twelve Peers of France» by Alfred John Church, Project Gutenberg book 75339 (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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