---
title: One morning about the middle of August, just at mid-day when the sun… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: One morning about the middle of August, just at mid-day when the sun was hottest, Michael ate his dinner of a piece of dry bread, and went to sleep under an oak. Who acts: sun, Michael. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, with its dependency tree and the
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, sentence 8

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One morning about the middle of August, just at mid-day when the sun was hottest, Michael ate his dinner of a piece of dry bread, and went to sleep under an oak.

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**Who acts:** sun, Michael · **What happens:** be, eat, go, sleep · **To what, where:** dinner, oak

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sun, Michael), 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:pg540:2:8
# text = One morning about the middle of August, just at mid-day when the sun was hottest, Michael ate his dinner of a piece of dry bread, and went to sleep under an oak.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	about	about	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	middle	middle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	August	August	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	just	just	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	mid-day	mid-day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	_
12	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	16	mark	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
16	hottest	hot	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	11	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
18	Michael	Michael	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	dinner	dinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
22	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nmod	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	dry	dry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	bread	bread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
30	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	conj	_	_
31	to	to	PART	TO	_	32	mark	_	_
32	sleep	sleep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	30	xcomp	_	_
33	under	under	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
34	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	oak	oak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the sun |  |  |  |  | hot *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **eat** | past | Michael | Michael's dinner of a piece of dry bread |  |  | morning |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dinner=Patient |
| 3 | **go** | past | Michael *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **sleep** | to-infinitive | Michael *not said here* |  |  | a oak |  |  | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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 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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