--- title: They always told the children, before they left them, not to put the… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics description: They always told the children, before they left them, not to put their heads out of the nest; but, to-day, at the noise of the fight below, they looked down and so saw the whole affair. Who acts: parents, fight. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, with --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/4/81/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Brown Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/) / [The Brown Fairy Book, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/4/) / 81 # The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4, sentence 81 They always told the children, before they left them, not to put their heads out of the nest; but, to-day, at the noise of the fight below, they looked down and so saw the whole affair. **Who acts:** parents, fight · **What happens:** tell, leave, not put, look down, see, noise · **To what, where:** children, birds, heads, nest, whole affair · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (parents, fight), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. **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:pg3282:4:81 # text = They always told the children, before they left them, not to put their heads out of the nest; but, to-day, at the noise of the fight below, they looked down and so saw the whole affair. 1 They they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 3 nsubj _ _ 2 always always ADV RB PronType=Tot 3 advmod _ _ 3 told tell VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 4 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 5 det _ _ 5 children child NOUN NNS Number=Plur 3 iobj _ SpaceAfter=No 6 , , PUNCT , _ 9 punct _ _ 7 before before SCONJ IN _ 9 mark _ _ 8 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 9 nsubj _ _ 9 left leave VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 3 conj _ _ 10 them they PRON PRP Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 9 obj _ SpaceAfter=No 11 , , PUNCT , _ 14 punct _ _ 12 not not PART RB Polarity=Neg 14 advmod _ _ 13 to to PART TO _ 14 mark _ _ 14 put put VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 9 conj _ _ 15 their their PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 16 nmod:poss _ _ 16 heads head NOUN NNS Number=Plur 14 obj _ _ 17 out out ADP IN _ 20 case _ _ 18 of of ADP IN _ 20 case _ _ 19 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 20 det _ _ 20 nest nest NOUN NN Number=Sing 14 obl _ SpaceAfter=No 21 ; ; PUNCT , _ 37 punct _ _ 22 but but CCONJ CC _ 37 cc _ SpaceAfter=No 23 , , PUNCT , _ 22 punct _ _ 24 to to ADP IN _ 26 case _ SpaceAfter=No 25 - - PUNCT HYPH _ 24 punct _ SpaceAfter=No 26 day day NOUN NN Number=Sing 37 obl _ SpaceAfter=No 27 , , PUNCT , _ 30 punct _ _ 28 at at ADP IN _ 30 case _ _ 29 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 30 det _ _ 30 noise noise NOUN NN Number=Sing 26 conj _ _ 31 of of ADP IN _ 33 case _ _ 32 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 33 det _ _ 33 fight fight NOUN NN Number=Sing 30 nmod _ _ 34 below below ADV RB _ 33 advmod _ SpaceAfter=No 35 , , PUNCT , _ 26 punct _ _ 36 they they PRON PRP Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs 37 nsubj _ _ 37 looked look VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 3 parataxis _ _ 38 down down ADV RB _ 37 advmod _ _ 39 and and CCONJ CC _ 41 cc _ _ 40 so so ADV RB _ 41 advmod _ _ 41 saw see VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 37 conj _ _ 42 the the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 44 det _ _ 43 whole whole ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 44 amod _ _ 44 affair affair NOUN NN Number=Sing 41 obj _ SpaceAfter=No 45 . . PUNCT . _ 3 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | parents *= parent* | | the children | | | always *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent child=Recipient | | 2 | **leave** | past | parents *= parent* | birds *= bird* | | | | | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme | | 3 | **not** **put** | to-infinitive | parents *= parent* *not said here* | parents's heads | | the nest | | | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent head=Theme out nest=Destination | | 4 | **look down** | past | parents *= parent* | | | | day | down *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus | | 5 | **see** | past | parents *= parent* *not said here* | the whole affair | | | | | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer affair=Stimulus | | 6 | **noise** | | the fight | | | | | | nom noise «event intransitive»: of=agent | 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. **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. - ← previous: [sentence 80](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/4/80/) - next →: [sentence 82](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/4/82/) - ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/4/)