---
title: And he asked her if he might spend the night beside her fire, as it… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And he asked her if he might spend the night beside her fire, as it was too late and too dark to go back to the town. Who acts: fox, fire, woman. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Princes and Their Beasts (lithuanian Fairy Tale), with its dependency tree and the pragmat
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Three Princes and Their Beasts (lithuanian Fairy Tale), sentence 110

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And he asked her if he might spend the night beside her fire, as it was too late and too dark to go back to the town.

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**Who acts:** fox, fire, woman · **What happens:** ask, spend, be, go back, fire · **To what, where:** woman, fire

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Princes and Their Beasts (lithuanian Fairy Tale). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fox, fire, woman), 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:pg641:5:110
# text = And he asked her if he might spend the night beside her fire, as it was too late and too dark to go back to the town.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	spend	spend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	too	too	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	late	late	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	parataxis	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	too	too	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	_
23	to	to	PART	TO	_	24	mark	_	_
24	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	advcl	_	_
25	back	back	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
26	to	to	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | fox |  | woman |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent she=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **spend** *a condition, not said to happen* | might | fox |  |  | woman's fire | night |  | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | fire |  |  |  |  | late *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | fire *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **go back** | to-infinitive | fire *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient |
| 6 | **fire** |  | woman |  |  |  |  |  | nom fire «event transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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