---
title: As soon as the lights were out, these untiring nibblers set to work. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: As soon as the lights were out, these untiring nibblers set to work. Who acts: untiring nibblers. 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 5

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As soon as the lights were out, these untiring nibblers set to work.

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**Who acts:** untiring nibblers · **What happens:** be out, set, work

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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 (untiring nibblers), 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:pg540:32:5
# text = As soon as the lights were out, these untiring nibblers set to work.
1	As	as	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	12	advmod	_	_
3	as	as	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	lights	light	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
6	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
7	out	out	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	11	det	_	_
10	untiring	untiring	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	nibblers	nibbler	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	set	set	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	work	work	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be out** | past | this untiring nibblers *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **set** | present | this untiring nibblers |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **work** | to-infinitive | this untiring nibblers *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn employment-95.3 «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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