---
title: After a time, when they had warmed themselves, they said: “Friend, s… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: After a time, when they had warmed themselves, they said: “Friend, shall we play a little game of cards?” Who acts: cats, we. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, sentence 94

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
After a time, when they had warmed themselves, they said: “Friend, shall we play a little game of cards?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** cats, we · **What happens:** warm, say, play · **To what, where:** cats, little game · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cats, we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:13:94
# text = After a time, when they had warmed themselves, they said: “Friend, shall we play a little game of cards?”
1	After	after	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	8	advmod	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	warmed	warm	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	3	acl:relcl	_	_
9	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
14	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	Friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	vocative	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	game	game	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	cards	card	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **warm** | past · perfect | cats *= cat* | cats *= cat* |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent themselves=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | cats *= cat* |  |  |  | time |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **play** *in a quote* | shall | we | a little game of cards |  |  |  | Friend *vocative* | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent game=Theme |

<!-- .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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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