---
title: They started off, and when they reached it they found the pot in its… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They started off, and when they reached it they found the pot in its place, but quite empty! Who acts: others. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Cat and the Mouse in Partnership, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Cat and the Mouse in Partnership, sentence 53

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They started off, and when they reached it they found the pot in its place, but quite empty!

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**Who acts:** others · **What happens:** start off, reach, find · **To what, where:** provision, pot, place

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Cat and the Mouse in Partnership. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (others), 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:pg640:3:53
# text = They started off, and when they reached it they found the pot in its place, but quite empty!
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	off	off	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
6	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	8	mark	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	pot	pot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
19	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **start off** | past | others *= other* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 2 | **reach** | past | others *= other* | provision |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **find** | past | others *= other* | the pot |  | provision's place |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pot=Topic |

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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 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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