---
title: The night was nearly half over before he reached the spark, which tu… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The night was nearly half over before he reached the spark, which turned out to be a big fire, and by the fire a man was sleeping who was so tall he might have been a giant. Who acts: night, guardian, spark, man. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mogarzea and His Son, with its de
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/6/)

<!-- 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/) / [Mogarzea and His Son](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/) / 6

# The Violet Fairy Book, Mogarzea and His Son, sentence 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The night was nearly half over before he reached the spark, which turned out to be a big fire, and by the fire a man was sleeping who was so tall he might have been a giant.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** night, guardian, spark, man · **What happens:** be, reach, turn out, sleep · **To what, where:** spark, big fire, giant

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mogarzea and His Son. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (night, guardian, spark, man), 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:pg641:44:6
# text = The night was nearly half over before he reached the spark, which turned out to be a big fire, and by the fire a man was sleeping who was so tall he might have been a giant.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	half	half	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	6	advmod	_	_
6	over	over	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
7	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	spark	spark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
14	turned	turn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
15	out	out	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	cop	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
23	by	by	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nsubj	_	_
28	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
29	sleeping	sleep	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
30	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	33	nsubj	_	_
31	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	33	cop	_	_
32	so	so	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	_
33	tall	tall	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	ccomp	_	_
34	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	39	nsubj	_	_
35	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	39	aux	_	_
36	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	39	aux	_	_
37	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	39	cop	_	_
38	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	39	det	_	_
39	giant	giant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
40	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the night |  |  |  |  | half, over *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **reach** | past | guardian | the spark |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent spark=Theme |
| 3 | **turn out** | past | the spark |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is a** | to-infinitive | the spark *not said here* | a big fire |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **sleep** | past · progressive | a man |  |  |  |  | by the fire | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | tall *property* | tree rules |
| 7 | **is a** | might · perfect | guardian | a giant |  |  |  |  | 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: [sentence 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/5/)
- next →: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/7/)
- ↑ back to [Mogarzea and His Son](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/)