---
title: They returned home, but they hadn’t had time to sit down when the th… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They returned home, but they hadn’t had time to sit down when the thunder crashed, the ceiling split open, and in flew a raven. Who acts: sisters, thunder, ceiling. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Death of Koshchei the Deathless, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of 
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Death of Koshchei the Deathless, sentence 37

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They returned home, but they hadn’t had time to sit down when the thunder crashed, the ceiling split open, and in flew a raven.

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**Who acts:** sisters, thunder, ceiling · **What happens:** return, not have, sit down, crash, split, fly · **To what, where:** raven

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Death of Koshchei the Deathless. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sisters, thunder, ceiling), 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:pg540:7:37
# text = They returned home, but they hadn’t had time to sit down when the thunder crashed, the ceiling split open, and in flew a raven.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	home	home	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
7	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	had	have	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	conj	_	_
10	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	sit	sit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl	_	_
13	down	down	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	thunder	thunder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	crashed	crash	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	ceiling	ceiling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	split	split	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
22	open	open	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
25	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
26	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	conj	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	raven	raven	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **return** | past | sisters *= sister* |  |  |  |  | home *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **have** | past · perfect | sisters *= sister* |  |  |  | time |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **sit down** | to-infinitive | sisters *= sister* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **crash** | past | the thunder |  |  |  |  |  | vn break-45.1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **split** | past | the ceiling |  |  |  |  | open *property* | vn break-45.1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 6 | **fly** | past | the ceiling *not said here* | a raven |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location raven=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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