---
title: The more they killed the more came. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The more they killed the more came. Who acts: cats. 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 8

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The more they killed the more came.

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**Who acts:** cats · **What happens:** kill, come

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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 (cats), 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:pg540:32:8
# text = The more they killed the more came.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	4	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	killed	kill	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	7	advmod	_	_
7	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **kill** | past | cats *= cat* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **come** | past | cats *= cat* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «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 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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