---
title: They began when he was quite young, and tired of staying at home wit… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They began when he was quite young, and tired of staying at home with his father and mother. Who acts: Tortoise, Tale. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2, sentence 43

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They began when he was quite young, and tired of staying at home with his father and mother.

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**Who acts:** Tortoise, Tale · **What happens:** begin, be, stay · **To what, where:** home

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Tortoise, Tale), 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:pg3282:35:43
# text = They began when he was quite young, and tired of staying at home with his father and mother.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
6	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	tired	tired	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
11	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
12	staying	stay	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	home	home	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | Tortoise |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **is** | past | Tale |  |  |  |  | young *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **stay** | gerund | Tortoise *not said here* |  |  | home |  | with Tale's father and mother | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at home=Location |

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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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