---
title: In a few minutes he returned, followed by a cloud of wood-pigeons, s… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In a few minutes he returned, followed by a cloud of wood-pigeons, so dense that it seemed to fill the room. Who acts: life, it. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 21, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 38

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In a few minutes he returned, followed by a cloud of wood-pigeons, so dense that it seemed to fill the room.

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**Who acts:** life, it · **What happens:** return, follow, seem, fill, cloud · **To what, where:** room, wood pigeons

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (life, it), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg2435:1802`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg2435:21:38
# text = In a few minutes he returned, followed by a cloud of wood-pigeons, so dense that it seemed to fill the room.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	minutes	minute	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	followed	follow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	advcl	_	_
9	by	by	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	cloud	cloud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	_
15	pigeons	pigeon	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	_
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	dense	dense	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	advcl	_	_
22	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
23	fill	fill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	xcomp	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	room	room	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **return** | past | life |  |  |  | minute |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **follow** | participle | life *not said here* |  |  |  |  | by a cloud of wood pigeons | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme by cloud=Location |
| 3 | **seem** | past | it |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 4 | **fill** | to-infinitive |  | the room |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent room=Patient |
| 5 | **cloud** |  |  | wood pigeons |  |  |  |  | nom cloud «phenomenon transitive»: of=patient |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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