---
title: They rode on till they came to the ant-hill, and then the horse asked: — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They rode on till they came to the ant-hill, and then the horse asked: Who acts: things, horse. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 32, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 32, sentence 54

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They rode on till they came to the ant-hill, and then the horse asked:

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**Who acts:** things, horse · **What happens:** ride on, come, ask · **To what, where:** ant hill

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 32. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (things, horse), 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:pg3027:32:54
# text = They rode on till they came to the ant-hill, and then the horse asked:
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	rode	ride	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
9	ant	ant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	hill	hill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	advmod	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ride on** | past | things *= thing* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **come** | past | things *= thing* |  |  | the ant hill |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to hill=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the horse |  |  |  | then |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: 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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