---
title: When it got quite dark the masters of the little house returned. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When it got quite dark the masters of the little house returned. Who acts: bed, dark masters. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Bushy Bride, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Bushy Bride, sentence 139

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When it got quite dark the masters of the little house returned.

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**Who acts:** bed, dark masters · **What happens:** get, return

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Bushy Bride. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bed, dark masters), 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:pg540:47:139
# text = When it got quite dark the masters of the little house returned.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	masters	master	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
12	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | bed |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **return** | past | the dark masters of the little house |  |  |  |  |  | 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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