---
title: The kitten had plainly run away, and nobody could tell if it would e… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The kitten had plainly run away, and nobody could tell if it would ever choose to come back. Who acts: nobody, paw. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 27, 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/pg3282/27/115/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 27, sentence 115

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The kitten had plainly run away, and nobody could tell if it would ever choose to come back.

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**Who acts:** nobody, paw · **What happens:** run away, tell, choose, come back · **To what, where:** kitten · **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 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (nobody, paw), 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:pg3282:27:115
# text = The kitten had plainly run away, and nobody could tell if it would ever choose to come back.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	kitten	kitten	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	plainly	plainly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	run	run	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	away	away	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	nobody	nobody	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	11	nsubj	_	_
10	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	parataxis	_	_
12	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
14	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	16	advmod	_	_
16	choose	choose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	back	back	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **run away** | past · perfect · passive |  | the kitten |  |  |  | away, plainly *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Agent |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | could | nobody |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **choose** *a condition, not said to happen* | would | paw |  |  |  | ever |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **come back** | to-infinitive | paw *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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