---
title: One night there was a dreadful storm; it thundered and lightened and… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: One night there was a dreadful storm; it thundered and lightened and the rain streamed down in torrents. Who acts: dreadful storm, storm, rain. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How to Tell a True Princess, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, How to Tell a True Princess, sentence 6

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One night there was a dreadful storm; it thundered and lightened and the rain streamed down in torrents.

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**Who acts:** dreadful storm, storm, rain · **What happens:** be, thunder, lighten, stream down · **To what, where:** torrents

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How to Tell a True Princess. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dreadful storm, storm, rain), 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:pg640:44:6
# text = One night there was a dreadful storm; it thundered and lightened and the rain streamed down in torrents.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	4	expl	_	_
4	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	dreadful	dreadful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	storm	storm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	thundered	thunder	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	lightened	lighten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	conj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	rain	rain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	streamed	stream	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	conj	_	_
17	down	down	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	torrents	torrent	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a dreadful storm |  |  | there | night |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **thunder** | past | storm |  |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **lighten** | participle | storm *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn remedy-45.7-1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **stream down** | participle | the rain |  |  | torrents |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in torrent=Location |

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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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