---
title: A few minutes later they arrived at the castle, and the fox, who had… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A few minutes later they arrived at the castle, and the fox, who had often been there before, slipped in without difficulty. Who acts: grains, fox. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 23, 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/pg3282/23/48/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 23, sentence 48

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A few minutes later they arrived at the castle, and the fox, who had often been there before, slipped in without difficulty.

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**Who acts:** grains, fox · **What happens:** arrive, be, slip in · **To what, where:** castle

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (grains, fox), 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:pg3282:23:48
# text = A few minutes later they arrived at the castle, and the fox, who had often been there before, slipped in without difficulty.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	minutes	minute	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	later	late	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	6	advmod	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	arrived	arrive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	castle	castle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
17	often	often	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
18	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	19	cop	_	_
19	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	13	advmod	_	_
20	before	before	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
22	slipped	slip	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
23	in	in	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
24	without	without	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	difficulty	difficulty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **arrive** | past | grains *= grain* |  |  | the castle |  | late *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past · perfect | the fox |  |  |  |  | before, often, there *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **slip in** | past | grains *= grain* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | without difficulty | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=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 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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