---
title: Their house caught fire and was speedily burnt to the ground, with a… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Their house caught fire and was speedily burnt to the ground, with all the splendid furniture, the books, pictures, gold, silver, and precious goods it contained; and this was only the beginning of their troubles. Who acts: house, precious goods, this, sons. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by An
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/14/4/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[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 Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [Beauty and the Beast, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/14/) / 4

# The Blue Fairy Book, Beauty and the Beast, part 1, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Their house caught fire and was speedily burnt to the ground, with all the splendid furniture, the books, pictures, gold, silver, and precious goods it contained; and this was only the beginning of their troubles.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** house, precious goods, this, sons · **What happens:** catch, burnt, contain, be, trouble · **To what, where:** fire, beginning

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Beauty and the Beast, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (house, precious goods, this, sons), 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:pg503:14:4
# text = Their house caught fire and was speedily burnt to the ground, with all the splendid furniture, the books, pictures, gold, silver, and precious goods it contained; and this was only the beginning of their troubles.
1	Their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux:pass	_	_
7	speedily	speedily	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	burnt	burnt	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
14	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	17	det:predet	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	splendid	splendid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	furniture	furniture	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	books	book	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
22	pictures	picture	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
24	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
26	silver	silver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
29	precious	precious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	goods	goods	NOUN	NNS	Number=Ptan	32	nsubj	_	_
31	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	32	nsubj	_	_
32	contained	contain	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	39	punct	_	_
34	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	39	cc	_	_
35	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	39	nsubj	_	_
36	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	39	cop	_	_
37	only	only	ADV	RB	_	39	advmod	_	_
38	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	39	det	_	_
39	beginning	beginning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
40	of	of	ADP	IN	_	42	case	_	_
41	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	42	nmod:poss	_	_
42	troubles	trouble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	39	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
43	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **catch** | past | sons's house | fire |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fire=Theme |
| 2 | **burnt** | past · passive | sons's house *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to the ground; with all splendid furniture and the books and pictures and gold and silver; speedily *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **contain** | past | precious goods |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprise-107.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot |
| 4 | **is a** | past | this | the beginning |  |  |  | of sons's troubles | tree rules |
| 5 | **trouble** |  | sons *= son* |  |  |  |  |  | nom trouble «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/14/3/)
- next →: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/14/5/)
- ↑ back to [Beauty and the Beast, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/14/)