---
title: At last they ceased playing, and began to eat and drink and listen t… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At last they ceased playing, and began to eat and drink and listen to the talk that was going on around them. Who acts: musicians, talk. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Musicians, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Three Musicians, sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At last they ceased playing, and began to eat and drink and listen to the talk that was going on around them.

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**Who acts:** musicians, talk · **What happens:** cease, play, begin, eat, drink, listen · **To what, where:** last

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Musicians. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (musicians, talk), 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:pg7277:55:5
# text = At last they ceased playing, and began to eat and drink and listen to the talk that was going on around them.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	obl	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	ceased	cease	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	playing	play	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	drink	drink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	talk	talk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
18	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	20	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	acl:relcl	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	RP	_	20	compound:prt	_	_
22	around	around	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cease** | past | musicians *= musician* |  |  | last |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **play** | gerund | musicians *= musician* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **begin** | past | musicians *= musician* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **eat** | to-infinitive | musicians *= musician* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **drink** | infinitive | musicians *= musician* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 6 | **listen** | infinitive | musicians *= musician* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to the talk | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to talk=Theme |
| 7 | **go on** | past · progressive | the talk |  |  |  |  | around musicians *= musician* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme around they=Location |

<!-- .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 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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