---
title: And he curled himself up in the soft grass till the shots died away… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And he curled himself up in the soft grass till the shots died away in the distance. Who acts: dog, shots. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 9, sentence 44

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And he curled himself up in the soft grass till the shots died away in the distance.

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**Who acts:** dog, shots · **What happens:** curl up, die away · **To what, where:** dog, soft grass

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dog, shots), 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:pg3027:9:44
# text = And he curled himself up in the soft grass till the shots died away in the distance.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	curled	curl	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	3	obj	_	_
5	up	up	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
10	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	shots	shot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	died	die	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
14	away	away	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	distance	distance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **curl up** | past | dog | dog |  | the soft grass |  |  | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent himself=Patient |
| 2 | **die away** | past | the shots |  |  |  |  | in the distance; away *property* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.patient V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient in distance=Attribute |

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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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