---
title: But then it went on to tell them about Christmas Eve, when it had be… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But then it went on to tell them about Christmas Eve, when it had been adorned with sweet-meats and tapers. Who acts: mouse. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 11, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/11/136/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 11, sentence 136

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But then it went on to tell them about Christmas Eve, when it had been adorned with sweet-meats and tapers.

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**Who acts:** mouse · **What happens:** go on, tell, adorn · **To what, where:** birds, mouse · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mouse), 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:pg5615:11:136
# text = But then it went on to tell them about Christmas Eve, when it had been adorned with sweet-meats and tapers.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	on	on	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
8	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	iobj	_	_
9	about	about	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	Christmas	Christmas	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	Eve	Eve	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	adorned	adorn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl:relcl	_	_
18	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	sweet	sweet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	meats	meat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	tapers	taper	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go on** | past | mouse |  |  |  | then |  | vn begin-55.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | mouse *not said here* |  | birds *= bird* |  |  | about Christmas | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent they=Recipient about christmas=Topic |
| 3 | **adorn** | past · perfect · passive |  | mouse |  |  |  | with sweet meats and tapers | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: subject=Destination with meat=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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