---
title: So off they started through fields and meadows, over hedges and ditc… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So off they started through fields and meadows, over hedges and ditches, and walked the whole day long, and when it rained sister said: Who acts: crusts, it, sister. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Brother and Sister, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Brother and Sister, sentence 7

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So off they started through fields and meadows, over hedges and ditches, and walked the whole day long, and when it rained sister said:

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**Who acts:** crusts, it, sister · **What happens:** start, walk, rain, say · **To what, where:** fields · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Brother and Sister. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (crusts, it, sister), 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:pg540:10:7
# text = So off they started through fields and meadows, over hedges and ditches, and walked the whole day long, and when it rained sister said:
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	off	off	ADP	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	through	through	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	fields	field	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	meadows	meadow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	over	over	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	hedges	hedge	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	ditches	ditch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	walked	walk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl:unmarked	_	_
20	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
23	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	25	advmod	_	_
24	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	rained	rain	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
26	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nsubj	_	_
27	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **start** | past | crusts *= crust* |  |  | fields and meadows |  | over hedges and ditches | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **walk** | past | crusts *= crust* *not said here* |  |  |  | day | long *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **rain** | past | it |  |  |  |  |  | vn weather-57 «It V PP.theme» |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | sister |  |  |  |  |  | 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.

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**Text:** «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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