---
title: A few hours more and the poor duckling's life had been ended. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A few hours more and the poor duckling's life had been ended. 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 90

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A few hours more and the poor duckling's life had been ended.

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**What happens:** end · **To what, where:** life

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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: 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:pg3027:9:90
# text = A few hours more and the poor duckling's life had been ended.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	hours	hour	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	13	advmod	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	duckling	duckling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	's	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	ended	end	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **end** | past · perfect · passive |  | the poor duckling's life |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: subject=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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