---
title: It was now close on midnight, so Niels began his watch, and Rasmus w… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was now close on midnight, so Niels began his watch, and Rasmus went to sleep. Who acts: sparrow, Niels, Rasmus. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 29, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/29/139/)

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 139

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It was now close on midnight, so Niels began his watch, and Rasmus went to sleep.

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**Who acts:** sparrow, Niels, Rasmus · **What happens:** be, begin, go · **To what, where:** watch, sleep

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sparrow, Niels, Rasmus), 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:pg2435:29:139
# text = It was now close on midnight, so Niels began his watch, and Rasmus went to sleep.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
4	close	close	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	midnight	midnight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	so	so	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
9	Niels	Niels	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	watch	watch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	Rasmus	Rasmus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	sleep	sleep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | sparrow |  |  |  | now; midnight | close *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **begin** | past | Niels | Rasmus's watch |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent watch=Eventuality |
| 3 | **go** | past | Rasmus |  |  | sleep |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to sleep=Initial\_Location |

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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:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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