---
title: It came to pass, one night, as he was going through a great wood, th… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It came to pass, one night, as he was going through a great wood, that a terrible storm came on. Who acts: youngest, husbandman, terrible storm. 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 6

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It came to pass, one night, as he was going through a great wood, that a terrible storm came on.

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**Who acts:** youngest, husbandman, terrible storm · **What happens:** come, pass, go, come on · **To what, where:** great wood

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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 (youngest, husbandman, terrible storm), 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:pg540:9:6
# text = It came to pass, one night, as he was going through a great wood, that a terrible storm came on.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	pass	pass	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	nummod	_	_
7	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
13	through	through	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	terrible	terrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	storm	storm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
22	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
23	on	on	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | youngest *= young* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **pass** | to-infinitive | youngest *= young* *not said here* |  |  |  | night |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **go** | past · progressive | husbandman |  |  | a great wood |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme through wood=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **come on** | past | a terrible storm |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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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