---
title: There was a large house, and the fire was burning so brightly inside… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There was a large house, and the fire was burning so brightly inside that he could tell that the people were not in bed. Who acts: large house, fire, people. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Master Thief, sentence 10

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There was a large house, and the fire was burning so brightly inside that he could tell that the people were not in bed.

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**Who acts:** large house, fire, people · **What happens:** be, burn, tell, not be · **To what, where:** bed · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Master Thief. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (large house, fire, people), 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:pg540:9:10
# text = There was a large house, and the fire was burning so brightly inside that he could tell that the people were not in bed.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	burning	burn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
12	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	brightly	brightly	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
14	inside	inside	ADP	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
15	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	advcl	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	nsubj	_	_
22	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	25	cop	_	_
23	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
24	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	bed	bed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a large house |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **burn** | past · progressive | the fire |  |  |  |  | brightly *property* | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | could | fire |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **not** **is** | past | the people |  |  | bed |  |  | tree rules |

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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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