---
title: He had not finished a quarter of them, when the dog began to howl. — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He had not finished a quarter of them, when the dog began to howl. Who acts: Peter, dog. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 27, 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/pg2435/27/116/)

<!-- 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 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/27/) / 116

# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 27, sentence 116

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He had not finished a quarter of them, when the dog began to howl.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Peter, dog · **What happens:** not finish, begin, howl · **To what, where:** quarter

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Peter, dog), 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:pg2435:27:116
# text = He had not finished a quarter of them, when the dog began to howl.
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	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	finished	finish	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	quarter	quarter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	13	advmod	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	howl	howl	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **finish** | past · perfect | Peter | a quarter of numbers |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector quarter=Eventuality |
| 2 | **begin** | past | the dog |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **howl** | to-infinitive | the dog *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=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 115](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/27/115/)
- next →: [sentence 117](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/27/117/)
- ↑ back to [The Crimson Fairy Book, part 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/27/)