---
title: Towards evening they reached a small hut, and knocking at the door,… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Towards evening they reached a small hut, and knocking at the door, asked if they might spend the night there. Who acts: fortunes. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 19, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 19, sentence 115

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Towards evening they reached a small hut, and knocking at the door, asked if they might spend the night there.

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**Who acts:** fortunes · **What happens:** reach, knock, ask, spend · **To what, where:** small hut

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 19. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fortunes), 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:pg3027:19:115
# text = Towards evening they reached a small hut, and knocking at the door, asked if they might spend the night there.
1	Towards	toward	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	compound	_	_
2	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	hut	hut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	knocking	knock	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
16	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	spend	spend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reach** | past | fortunes *= fortune* | a small hut |  |  | evening |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent hut=Theme |
| 2 | **knock** | gerund | fortunes *= fortune* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at the door | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent at door=Patient |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | fortunes *= fortune* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **spend** *a condition, not said to happen* | might | fortunes *= fortune* |  |  | there | night |  | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: 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.

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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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