---
title: At the midnight hour the passage door creaked and the sound of steps… — Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Musc… · tree and pragmatics
description: At the midnight hour the passage door creaked and the sound of steps was heard; the witch was coming! Who acts: passage door, witch. A sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Magic and Witchcraft., part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every cl
---

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# Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore, Magic and Witchcraft., part 6, sentence 80

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At the midnight hour the passage door creaked and the sound of steps was heard; the witch was coming!

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**Who acts:** passage door, witch · **What happens:** creak, hear, come · **To what, where:** sound

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This is a sentence of «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Magic and Witchcraft., part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (passage door, witch), 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:pg22373:47:80
# text = At the midnight hour the passage door creaked and the sound of steps was heard; the witch was coming!
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	midnight	midnight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	passage	passage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	creaked	creak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux:pass	_	_
15	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	coming	come	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **creak** | past | the passage door |  |  |  | hour |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **hear** | past · passive |  | the sound of steps |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: subject=Stimulus |
| 3 | **come** | past · progressive | the witch |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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:** «Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore», Project Gutenberg book 22373 (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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