---
title: When midnight came she saw afar off a little light, and thought, ‘Ah… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When midnight came she saw afar off a little light, and thought, ‘Ah! if only I could reach that!’ Who acts: midnight, princess, I. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Iron Stove(7), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Iron Stove(7), sentence 46

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When midnight came she saw afar off a little light, and thought, ‘Ah! if only I could reach that!’

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**Who acts:** midnight, princess, I · **What happens:** come, see, think, reach · **To what, where:** afar, that · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Iron Stove(7). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (midnight, princess, I), 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:pg640:8:46
# text = When midnight came she saw afar off a little light, and thought, ‘Ah! if only I could reach that!’
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	midnight	midnight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
4	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	afar	afar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
7	off	off	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	22	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	_
18	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
19	only	only	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
20	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
23	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | midnight |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **see** | past | princess | afar |  |  |  | off a little light | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer afar=Stimulus |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | princess *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 4 | **reach** | could | I | that |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent that=Theme |

<!-- .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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