---
title: Close around the hut was thick darkness, but what was that bobbing l… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Close around the hut was thick darkness, but what was that bobbing light that streamed across the water? Who acts: hut, light. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 16, sentence 83

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Close around the hut was thick darkness, but what was that bobbing light that streamed across the water?

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**Who acts:** hut, light · **What happens:** be, bob, stream · **To what, where:** thick darkness, water

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hut, light), 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:pg3027:16:83
# text = Close around the hut was thick darkness, but what was that bobbing light that streamed across the water?
1	Close	close	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	7	advmod	_	_
2	around	around	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	hut	hut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	darkness	darkness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	13	obj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
13	bobbing	bob	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	conj	_	_
14	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
15	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
16	streamed	stream	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	_
17	across	across	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the hut |  |  | thick darkness |  | close *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **bob** | past · progressive | the hut *not said here* | thick darkness |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **stream** | past | light |  |  | the water |  |  | vn substance\_emission-43.4-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme across water=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 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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