---
title: But night was drawing on, and the darkness grew so thick that it see… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But night was drawing on, and the darkness grew so thick that it seemed as if it could be cut with a knife. Who acts: darkness, it. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 14, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/14/95/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 14, sentence 95

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But night was drawing on, and the darkness grew so thick that it seemed as if it could be cut with a knife.

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**Who acts:** darkness, it · **What happens:** draw on, grow, seem, cut · **To what, where:** darkness

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (darkness, it), 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:pg2435:14:95
# text = But night was drawing on, and the darkness grew so thick that it seemed as if it could be cut with a knife.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	drawing	draw	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	darkness	darkness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	so	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	xcomp	_	_
13	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
16	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
17	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	cut	cut	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	xcomp	_	_
22	with	with	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **draw on** | past · progressive |  |  |  |  | night |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **grow** | past | the darkness |  |  |  |  | thick *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **seem** | past | it |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 4 | **cut** *a condition, not said to happen* | could · passive |  | darkness |  |  |  | with a knife | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient with knife=Instrument |

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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:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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