---
title: But the little drake could not go to sleep, and as he lay there wide… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the little drake could not go to sleep, and as he lay there wide awake in the night he heard the witch come to the door and say: Who acts: little drake, drake, witch. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Duck, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The White Duck, sentence 31

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the little drake could not go to sleep, and as he lay there wide awake in the night he heard the witch come to the door and say:

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**Who acts:** little drake, drake, witch · **What happens:** not go, lie, hear, come, say · **To what, where:** sleep, witch, door · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Duck. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little drake, drake, witch), 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:pg640:29:31
# text = But the little drake could not go to sleep, and as he lay there wide awake in the night he heard the witch come to the door and say:
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	drake	drake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	sleep	sleep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
15	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	14	advmod	_	_
16	wide	wide	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	awake	awake	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
21	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	witch	witch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	xcomp	_	_
26	to	to	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	_
29	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
30	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **go** | could | the little drake |  |  | sleep |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to sleep=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **lie** | past | drake |  |  | there |  | awake *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **hear** | past | drake | the witch |  |  | night |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **come** | infinitive | the witch *not said here* |  |  | the door |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to door=Initial\_Location |
| 5 | **say** *speech: assert* | infinitive | the witch *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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