---
title: When evening came, and there was no sign of supper, the head spoke,… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When evening came, and there was no sign of supper, the head spoke, for the first time that day: Who acts: evening, sign, head. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, 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/pg3282/21/139/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 139

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When evening came, and there was no sign of supper, the head spoke, for the first time that day:

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**Who acts:** evening, sign, head · **What happens:** come, be, speak, sign · **To what, where:** supper · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (evening, sign, head), 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:pg3282:21:139
# text = When evening came, and there was no sign of supper, the head spoke, for the first time that day:
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	7	expl	_	_
7	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
8	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	9	det	_	_
9	sign	sign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	supper	supper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	for	for	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	20	amod	_	_
20	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
21	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	22	det	_	_
22	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | evening |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **be** | past | no sign of supper |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | the head |  |  |  | time |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **sign** |  |  | supper |  |  |  |  | nom sign «communication transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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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