---
title: The dirt lay thicker than ever on the floor of the cave when the you… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The dirt lay thicker than ever on the floor of the cave when the young man took the spade and began his work. Who acts: dirt, young man, man. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 22, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/22/35/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Crimson Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/) / [The Crimson Fairy Book, part 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/22/) / 35

# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 22, sentence 35

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The dirt lay thicker than ever on the floor of the cave when the young man took the spade and began his work.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** dirt, young man, man · **What happens:** lie, take, begin, work · **To what, where:** floor, spade, work

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dirt, young man, man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg2435:22:35
# text = The dirt lay thicker than ever on the floor of the cave when the young man took the spade and began his work.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	dirt	dirt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	thicker	thick	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	xcomp	_	_
5	than	than	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	3	obl	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	floor	floor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
13	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	spade	spade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	conj	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past | the dirt |  |  | the floor of the cave |  | thick *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on floor=Location |
| 2 | **take** | past | the young man | the spade |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent spade=Theme |
| 3 | **begin** | past | the young man *not said here* | man's work |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent work=Eventuality |
| 4 | **work** |  | man |  |  |  |  |  | nom work «act intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/22/34/)
- next →: [sentence 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/22/36/)
- ↑ back to [The Crimson Fairy Book, part 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/22/)