---
title: In a short time they came to three cross roads; two of them were gay… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In a short time they came to three cross roads; two of them were gay and crowded, but the third was dark and lonely. Who acts: brothers, two, third. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/29/74/)

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 4, sentence 74

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In a short time they came to three cross roads; two of them were gay and crowded, but the third was dark and lonely.

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**Who acts:** brothers, two, third · **What happens:** come, be · **To what, where:** three cross roads

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (brothers, two, third), 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:pg7277:29:74
# text = In a short time they came to three cross roads; two of them were gay and crowded, but the third was dark and lonely.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	nummod	_	_
9	cross	cross	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	roads	road	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
12	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nsubj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nmod	_	_
15	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
16	gay	gay	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	parataxis	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	crowded	crowded	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	third	third	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	24	nsubj	_	_
23	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	cop	_	_
24	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	conj	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
26	lonely	lonely	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | brothers *= brother* |  |  | three cross roads | time |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to road=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **is** | past | two of brothers |  |  |  |  | gay *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | two of brothers *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** | past | the third |  |  |  |  | dark *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **be** |  | the third *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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