---
title: But they had not got home before they began to quarrel. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But they had not got home before they began to quarrel. Who acts: folks. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 22

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But they had not got home before they began to quarrel.

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**Who acts:** folks · **What happens:** not get, begin, quarrel

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (folks), 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:pg2435:16:22
# text = But they had not got home before they began to quarrel.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	got	get	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	home	home	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
7	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	quarrel	quarrel	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **get** | past · perfect | folks *= folk* |  |  |  |  | home *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **begin** | past | folks *= folk* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **quarrel** | to-infinitive | folks *= folk* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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