---
title: They dared not go in, but sat themselves down at the door, listening… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They dared not go in, but sat themselves down at the door, listening to what their father and mother were saying. Who acts: brothers, father. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/25/)

<!-- 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/) / [Little Thumb](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/) / 25

# The Blue Fairy Book, Little Thumb, sentence 25

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They dared not go in, but sat themselves down at the door, listening to what their father and mother were saying.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** brothers, father · **What happens:** not dare, not go in, sit down, listen, say · **To what, where:** brothers, door · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brothers, father), 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:pg503:33:25
# text = They dared not go in, but sat themselves down at the door, listening to what their father and mother were saying.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	dared	dare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	2	advmod	_	_
4	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	in	in	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	8	obj	_	_
10	down	down	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	listening	listen	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	15	obl	_	_
18	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	conj	_	_
22	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **dare** | past | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **go in** | infinitive | brothers *= brother* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **sit down** | past | brothers *= brother* *not said here* | brothers *= brother* |  | the door |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **listen** | gerund | brothers *= brother* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to what=Theme |
| 5 | **say** *speech: assert* | past · progressive | brothers's father and mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=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 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/24/)
- next →: [sentence 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/26/)
- ↑ back to [Little Thumb](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/33/)