---
title: On a bitter night somewhere between Christmas and the New Year, a ma… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: On a bitter night somewhere between Christmas and the New Year, a man set out to walk to the neighbouring village. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Underground Workers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/25/1/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [The Underground Workers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/25/) / 1

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Underground Workers, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
On a bitter night somewhere between Christmas and the New Year, a man set out to walk to the neighbouring village.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** set out, walk, neighbour · **To what, where:** man

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Underground Workers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg641:25:1
# text = On a bitter night somewhere between Christmas and the New Year, a man set out to walk to the neighbouring village.
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	bitter	bitter	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	somewhere	somewhere	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	4	advmod	_	_
6	between	between	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	Christmas	Christmas	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	New	New	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	Year	Year	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	appos	_	_
15	set	set	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl	_	_
16	out	out	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	walk	walk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	advcl	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	neighbouring	neighbour	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	22	amod	_	_
22	village	village	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **set out** | participle |  | a man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **walk** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | to the neighbouring village *result* | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Theme to village=Result |
| 3 | **neighbour** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [Jesper Who Herded the Hares, 162](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/24/162/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/25/2/)
- ↑ back to [The Underground Workers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/25/)