---
title: The town council had just assembled to consider once more this plagu… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The town council had just assembled to consider once more this plague of Egypt, from which no one could save the town. Who acts: one. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Ratcatcher, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Ratcatcher, sentence 16

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The town council had just assembled to consider once more this plague of Egypt, from which no one could save the town.

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**Who acts:** one · **What happens:** assemble, consider, save, plague · **To what, where:** town council, plague, town, Egypt

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Ratcatcher. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (one), 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:pg540:32:16
# text = The town council had just assembled to consider once more this plague of Egypt, from which no one could save the town.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	council	council	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	just	just	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	assembled	assemble	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	consider	consider	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	10	advmod	_	_
10	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	8	advmod	_	_
11	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	det	_	_
12	plague	plague	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	Egypt	Egypt	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	obl	_	_
18	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	19	det	_	_
19	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
20	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **assemble** | past · perfect · passive |  | the town council |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **consider** | to-infinitive |  | this plague of Egypt |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent plague=Attribute |
| 3 | **save** | could | no one | the town |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent town=Theme from which=Source |
| 4 | **plague** |  |  | Egypt |  |  |  |  | nom plague «state transitive»: of=patient |

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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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