---
title: Suddenly a voice said behind me: They burn well on a cold night. — The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth · tree and pragmatics
description: Suddenly a voice said behind me: They burn well on a cold night. Who acts: voice, aieì. A sentence of «The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth» by Unknown, The Descent of the Sun., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth, The Descent of the Sun., sentence 52

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Suddenly a voice said behind me: They burn well on a cold night.

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**Who acts:** voice, aieì · **What happens:** say, burn · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth» by Unknown, The Descent of the Sun.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (voice, aieì), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg68641:1:52
# text = Suddenly a voice said behind me: They burn well on a cold night.
1	Suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
8	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	burn	burn	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
10	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	9	advmod	_	_
11	on	on	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	cold	cold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | a voice |  |  |  |  | behind me; suddenly *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **burn** | present | aieì |  |  |  | night | well *property* | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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 descent of the sun: A cycle of birth» by Unknown, Project Gutenberg book 68641 (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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