---
title: They had made a rule always to dine off the smallest of the party, a… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They had made a rule always to dine off the smallest of the party, and when the fox was gone, why of course, he was smaller than the bear. Who acts: lies, fox. 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
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/24/46/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 46

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They had made a rule always to dine off the smallest of the party, and when the fox was gone, why of course, he was smaller than the bear.

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**Who acts:** lies, fox · **What happens:** make, dine off, be · **To what, where:** rule, smallest

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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 (lies, fox), 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:pg2435:24:46
# text = They had made a rule always to dine off the smallest of the party, and when the fox was gone, why of course, he was smaller than the bear.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	rule	rule	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	8	advmod	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	dine	dine	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
9	off	off	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	smallest	small	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	8	obj	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	party	party	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
17	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	21	mark	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
21	gone	gone	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
23	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	21	parataxis	_	_
24	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	advcl:relcl	_	_
25	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
27	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
28	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	cop	_	_
29	smaller	small	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	21	conj	_	_
30	than	than	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	bear	bear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | past · perfect | lies *= lie* | a rule |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset rule=Product |
| 2 | **dine off** | to-infinitive | lies *= lie* *not said here* | the smallest of the party |  |  |  | always *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | the fox |  |  |  |  | gone *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** | past | fox |  |  |  |  | than the bear; small *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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