---
title: They went on merrily along the road, till they came to a thicket, wh… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They went on merrily along the road, till they came to a thicket, when out sprang the cat, and killed three of the sons. Who acts: men. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nunda, Eater of People, sentence 172

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They went on merrily along the road, till they came to a thicket, when out sprang the cat, and killed three of the sons.

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**Who acts:** men · **What happens:** go on, come, spring out, kill · **To what, where:** road, thicket, cat, three

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men), 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:pg641:29:172
# text = They went on merrily along the road, till they came to a thicket, when out sprang the cat, and killed three of the sons.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	merrily	merrily	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
5	along	along	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	thicket	thicket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
17	out	out	ADP	RP	_	18	compound:prt	_	_
18	sprang	spring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	conj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	cat	cat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	killed	kill	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
24	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	23	obj	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go on** | past | men *= man* |  |  | the road |  | merrily *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme along road=Location |
| 2 | **come** | past | men *= man* |  |  | a thicket |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to thicket=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **spring out** | past | men *= man* *not said here* | the cat |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location cat=Theme |
| 4 | **kill** | past | men *= man* *not said here* | three of the sons |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent three=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 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.

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