---
title: The fire was fierce, but the cows took no heed, and walked steadily… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The fire was fierce, but the cows took no heed, and walked steadily through it, Covan the Brown-haired following them. Who acts: fire, cows. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 30, 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/pg3027/30/64/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 30, sentence 64

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The fire was fierce, but the cows took no heed, and walked steadily through it, Covan the Brown-haired following them.

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**Who acts:** fire, cows · **What happens:** be, take, walk, follow · **To what, where:** heed, Covan, fire, cows

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 30. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fire, cows), 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:pg3027:30:64
# text = The fire was fierce, but the cows took no heed, and walked steadily through it, Covan the Brown-haired following them.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	fierce	fierce	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	cows	cow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
10	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	11	det	_	_
11	heed	heed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	walked	walk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
15	steadily	steadily	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
16	through	through	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
19	Covan	Covan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
21	Brown	Brown	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	23	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	haired	haired	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	appos	_	_
24	following	follow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	23	advcl	_	_
25	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	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 | the fire |  |  |  |  | fierce *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **take** | past | the cows | no heed |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent heed=Theme |
| 3 | **walk** | past | the cows *not said here* | Covan |  | fire |  | steadily *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme through it=Trajectory |
| 4 | **follow** | gerund | the cows *not said here* | cows *= cow* |  |  |  |  | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |

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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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