---
title: About midnight he heard three crows, who had flown to the roof, talk… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: About midnight he heard three crows, who had flown to the roof, talking together. Who acts: midnight, three crows. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 2, sentence 5

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About midnight he heard three crows, who had flown to the roof, talking together.

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**Who acts:** midnight, three crows · **What happens:** hear, fly, talk · **To what, where:** three crows

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (midnight, three crows), 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:pg2435:2:5
# text = About midnight he heard three crows, who had flown to the roof, talking together.
1	About	about	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	midnight	midnight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	nummod	_	_
6	crows	crow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj	_	_
9	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	flown	fly	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	acl:relcl	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	roof	roof	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	talking	talk	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	conj	_	_
16	together	together	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | midnight | three crows |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer crow=Stimulus |
| 2 | **fly** | past · perfect | three crows |  |  |  |  | to the roof *result* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme to roof=Result |
| 3 | **talk** | gerund | midnight *not said here* |  |  |  |  | together *property* | vn talk-37.5 «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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