---
title: They a’ went to bed again, and the damosel began, as before, singing: — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They a’ went to bed again, and the damosel began, as before, singing: Who acts: sae, damosel. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Black Bull of Norroway, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Black Bull of Norroway, sentence 77

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They a’ went to bed again, and the damosel began, as before, singing:

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**Who acts:** sae, damosel · **What happens:** go, begin, sing · **To what, where:** bed

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Black Bull of Norroway. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sae, damosel), 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:pg503:55:77
# text = They a’ went to bed again, and the damosel began, as before, singing:
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’	'	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
7	again	again	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	damosel	damosel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	before	before	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | sae |  |  | bed | again |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to bed=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **begin** | past | the damosel |  |  |  |  | before *property* | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 3 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | the damosel *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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