---
title: They stopped by a wretched little house; the roof almost touched the… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They stopped by a wretched little house; the roof almost touched the ground, and the door was so low that you had to creep in and out. Who acts: loaves, roof, door, you. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of e
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/10/61/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 10, sentence 61

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They stopped by a wretched little house; the roof almost touched the ground, and the door was so low that you had to creep in and out.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** loaves, roof, door, you · **What happens:** stop, touch, be, have, creep · **To what, where:** ground

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (loaves, roof, door, you), 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:pg5615:10:61
# text = They stopped by a wretched little house; the roof almost touched the ground, and the door was so low that you had to creep in and out.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stopped	stop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	by	by	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	wretched	wretched	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	roof	roof	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
11	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
20	so	so	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	low	low	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	parataxis	_	_
22	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
23	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
24	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	advcl	_	_
25	to	to	PART	TO	_	26	mark	_	_
26	creep	creep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	xcomp	_	_
27	in	in	ADV	RB	_	26	advmod	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
29	out	out	ADV	RB	_	27	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stop** | past | loaves *= loaf* |  |  |  |  | by a wretched little house | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **touch** | past | the roof | the ground |  |  |  | almost *property* | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme ground=Co-Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | the door |  |  |  |  | low *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **have** | past | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **creep** | to-infinitive | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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