---
title: Night came on, and there seemed to be nothing for it but to seek out… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Night came on, and there seemed to be nothing for it but to seek out the best resting-place he could find. Who acts: Night, tailor. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crystal Coffin, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Crystal Coffin, sentence 4

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Night came on, and there seemed to be nothing for it but to seek out the best resting-place he could find.

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**Who acts:** Night, tailor · **What happens:** come on, seem, be, seek out, find · **To what, where:** nothing, best resting place

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crystal Coffin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Night, tailor), 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:pg7277:45:4
# text = Night came on, and there seemed to be nothing for it but to seek out the best resting-place he could find.
1	Night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	7	advmod	_	_
7	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	cop	_	_
10	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	7	xcomp	_	_
11	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nmod	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	seek	seek	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
16	out	out	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
18	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	21	amod	_	_
19	resting	resting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
22	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
23	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come on** | past | Night |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **seem** | past |  |  |  | there |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is a** | to-infinitive |  | nothing |  |  |  | for way | tree rules |
| 4 | **seek out** | to-infinitive |  | the best resting place |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent place=Theme |
| 5 | **find** | could | tailor | the best resting place *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent place=Topic |

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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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