---
title: Then came a dreadful period, when news from the king ceased entirely. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then came a dreadful period, when news from the king ceased entirely. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 27, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 27, sentence 16

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Then came a dreadful period, when news from the king ceased entirely.

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**What happens:** come, cease · **To what, where:** dreadful period, news

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg3027:27:16
# text = Then came a dreadful period, when news from the king ceased entirely.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	dreadful	dreadful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	period	period	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
7	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
8	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl:unmarked	_	_
9	from	from	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	ceased	cease	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
13	entirely	entirely	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past |  | a dreadful period |  |  | then |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location period=Theme |
| 2 | **cease** | participle |  | news from the king |  |  |  | entirely *property* | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

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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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