---
title: At that instant her frightened ladies came running down the stairs,… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At that instant her frightened ladies came running down the stairs, crying: Who acts: instant frightened ladies. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 14, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 14, sentence 96

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At that instant her frightened ladies came running down the stairs, crying:

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**Who acts:** instant frightened ladies · **What happens:** come, run down, cry · **To what, where:** stairs

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (instant frightened ladies), 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:pg3027:14:96
# text = At that instant her frightened ladies came running down the stairs, crying:
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	nsubj	_	_
3	instant	instant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
4	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
5	frightened	frightened	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	ladies	lady	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
7	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	running	run	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
9	down	down	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	stairs	stair	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	crying	cry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | hand's instant frightened ladies |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **run down** | gerund | hand's instant frightened ladies *not said here* | the stairs |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme stair=Trajectory |
| 3 | **cry** *speech: express* | gerund | hand's instant frightened ladies *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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