---
title: But when they heard the farmer coming they were frightened, and the… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But when they heard the farmer coming they were frightened, and the farmer’s wife begged the sexton to creep into a great empty chest. Who acts: cakes, farmer, wife, sexton. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, with its dependency tree and th
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/41/42/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, sentence 42

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But when they heard the farmer coming they were frightened, and the farmer’s wife begged the sexton to creep into a great empty chest.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** cakes, farmer, wife, sexton · **What happens:** hear, come, frighten, beg, creep · **To what, where:** farmer, cakes, sexton, great empty chest

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cakes, farmer, wife, sexton), 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:pg640:41:42
# text = But when they heard the farmer coming they were frightened, and the farmer’s wife begged the sexton to creep into a great empty chest.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	farmer	farmer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	coming	come	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux:pass	_	_
10	frightened	frighten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	farmer	farmer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’s	's	PART	POS	_	14	case	_	_
16	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	begged	beg	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	sexton	sexton	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	creep	creep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	xcomp	_	_
22	into	into	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
24	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
25	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	chest	chest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | cakes *= cake* | the farmer |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer farmer=Stimulus |
| 2 | **come** | gerund | the farmer *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **frighten** | past · passive |  | cakes *= cake* |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer |
| 4 | **beg** *speech: request* | past | the farmer's wife | the sexton |  |  |  |  | vn beg-58.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent sexton=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 5 | **creep** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the sexton *not said here* |  |  | a great empty chest |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme into chest=Destination |

<!-- .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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