---
title: And the fox went on till he nearly fell over an asp who was gliding… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And the fox went on till he nearly fell over an asp who was gliding across the road. Who acts: fox, asp. 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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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 27, sentence 89

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And the fox went on till he nearly fell over an asp who was gliding across the road.

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**Who acts:** fox, asp · **What happens:** go on, fall, glide · **To what, where:** road

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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 (fox, asp), 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:pg3282:27:89
# text = And the fox went on till he nearly fell over an asp who was gliding across the road.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	fox	fox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	on	on	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	_
10	over	over	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	asp	asp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	gliding	glide	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	acl:relcl	_	_
16	across	across	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go on** | past | the fox |  |  |  |  |  | vn function-105.2.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **fall** | past | fox |  |  |  |  | over a asp; nearly *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme over asp=Location |
| 3 | **glide** | past · progressive | a asp |  |  | the road |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme across road=Trajectory |

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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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