---
title: He had hardly left his comfortable cave when he had come across the… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He had hardly left his comfortable cave when he had come across the wolf, who inquired where he was going. Who acts: fox, wolf. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 102

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He had hardly left his comfortable cave when he had come across the wolf, who inquired where he was going.

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**Who acts:** fox, wolf · **What happens:** leave, come, inquire, go · **To what, where:** comfortable cave, wolf · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fox, wolf), 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:pg2435:24:102
# text = He had hardly left his comfortable cave when he had come across the wolf, who inquired where he was going.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
6	comfortable	comfortable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	cave	cave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	come	come	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
12	across	across	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	wolf	wolf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	17	nsubj	_	_
17	inquired	inquire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	_
18	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	21	advmod	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **leave** | past · perfect | fox | fox's comfortable cave |  |  |  | hardly *property* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cave=Theme |
| 2 | **come** | past · perfect | fox |  |  | the wolf |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme across wolf=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **inquire** *speech: other* | past | the wolf |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **go** | past · progressive | fox |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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.

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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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