---
title: Things looked very black again for the brothers, for they were sure… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Things looked very black again for the brothers, for they were sure there was no escape for them. Who acts: Things, brothers, escape. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 29, 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/pg5615/29/35/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 35

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Things looked very black again for the brothers, for they were sure there was no escape for them.

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**Who acts:** Things, brothers, escape · **What happens:** look, be

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Things, brothers, escape), 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:pg5615:29:35
# text = Things looked very black again for the brothers, for they were sure there was no escape for them.
1	Things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
2	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	very	very	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	xcomp	_	_
5	again	again	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
14	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	15	expl	_	_
15	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
16	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	17	det	_	_
17	escape	escape	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
18	for	for	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** | past | Things |  |  |  | again | for the brothers; black *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **is** | past | brothers *= brother* |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** | past | no escape for brothers |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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 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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