---
title: But bad times came, and they grew poorer and poorer, and the nights… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But bad times came, and they grew poorer and poorer, and the nights in which they went hungry to bed became more and more frequent. Who acts: burner, nights. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7, 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/pg3454/7/16/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7, sentence 16

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But bad times came, and they grew poorer and poorer, and the nights in which they went hungry to bed became more and more frequent.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** burner, nights · **What happens:** come, grow, go, become

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (burner, nights), 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:pg3454:7:16
# text = But bad times came, and they grew poorer and poorer, and the nights in which they went hungry to bed became more and more frequent.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	poorer	poor	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	8	xcomp	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	poorer	poor	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	nights	night	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nsubj	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	obl	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
20	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	xcomp	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
23	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
24	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	23	advmod	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
26	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	27	advmod	_	_
27	frequent	frequent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past |  |  |  |  | time |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **grow** | past | burner |  |  |  |  | poor *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **go** | past | burner |  |  |  | in the nights | hungry *property* | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme in which=Location |
| 4 | **become** | past | the nights |  |  |  |  |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |

<!-- .note -->
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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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