---
title: They took even longer to go back than they had to come, for they wer… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They took even longer to go back than they had to come, for they were tired and footsore with their journey. Who acts: homewards. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 18

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They took even longer to go back than they had to come, for they were tired and footsore with their journey.

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**Who acts:** homewards · **What happens:** take, go back, have, come, be, journey

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (homewards), 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:pg3282:12:18
# text = They took even longer to go back than they had to come, for they were tired and footsore with their journey.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	even	even	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	longer	long	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	2	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
7	back	back	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
8	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	tired	tired	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	advcl	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	footsore	footsore	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	conj	_	_
20	with	with	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	journey	journey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | homewards *= homeward* |  |  |  |  | long *property* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **go back** | to-infinitive | homewards *= homeward* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **have** | past | homewards *= homeward* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **come** | to-infinitive | homewards *= homeward* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **is** | past | homewards *= homeward* |  |  |  |  | with homewards's journey; tired *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **be** |  | homewards *= homeward* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 7 | **journey** |  | homewards *= homeward* |  |  |  |  |  | nom journey «act transitive»: poss=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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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