---
title: But when they came to it they saw that five or six of the houses wer… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But when they came to it they saw that five or six of the houses were chalked in the same manner. Who acts: Thieves. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Forty Thieves, sentence 83

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But when they came to it they saw that five or six of the houses were chalked in the same manner.

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**Who acts:** Thieves · **What happens:** come, see, chalk · **To what, where:** bade, five, same manner · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Forty Thieves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Thieves), 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:pg503:34:83
# text = But when they came to it they saw that five or six of the houses were chalked in the same manner.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
10	five	five	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	six	six	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	conj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	houses	house	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
16	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	chalked	chalk	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	ccomp	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	same	same	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	manner	manner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | Thieves *= thief* |  |  | bade |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to it=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **see** | past | Thieves *= thief* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **chalk** | past · passive |  | five |  | the same manner |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme in manner=Destination |

<!-- .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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