---
title: There were ropes of pearls, white as milk, and smooth as satin; heap… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: There were ropes of pearls, white as milk, and smooth as satin; heaps of shining rubies, red as the glowing coals; sap-phires as blue as the sky that summer day; and di-a-monds that flashed and sparkled like the sunlight. Who acts: ropes, that, di, monds. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» 
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Cornelia's Jewels., sentence 24

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There were ropes of pearls, white as milk, and smooth as satin; heaps of shining rubies, red as the glowing coals; sap-phires as blue as the sky that summer day; and di-a-monds that flashed and sparkled like the sunlight.

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**Who acts:** ropes, that, di, monds · **What happens:** be, shine, glow, day, mond, flash

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Cornelia's Jewels.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ropes, that, di, monds), 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:pg18442:29:24
# text = There were ropes of pearls, white as milk, and smooth as satin; heaps of shining rubies, red as the glowing coals; sap-phires as blue as the sky that summer day; and di-a-monds that flashed and sparkled like the sunlight.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	ropes	rope	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	pearls	pearl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
8	as	as	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	smooth	smooth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	_
13	as	as	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	satin	satin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
16	heaps	heap	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	parataxis	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	shining	shine	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	amod	_	_
19	rubies	ruby	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	conj	_	_
22	as	as	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	glowing	glow	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	25	amod	_	_
25	coals	coal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	29	punct	_	_
27	sap	SAP	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	27	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	phires	phire	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	conj	_	_
30	as	as	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	nmod	_	_
32	as	as	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
33	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	34	det	_	_
34	sky	sky	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nmod	_	_
35	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	37	nsubj	_	_
36	summer	summer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	37	compound	_	_
37	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	44	punct	_	_
39	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	44	cc	_	_
40	di	di	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	44	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
41	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	44	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	44	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
43	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	42	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
44	monds	mond	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nsubj	_	_
45	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	46	nsubj	_	_
46	flashed	flash	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	44	acl:relcl	_	_
47	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	48	cc	_	_
48	sparkled	sparkle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	46	conj	_	_
49	like	like	ADP	IN	_	51	case	_	_
50	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	51	det	_	_
51	sunlight	sunlight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	48	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
52	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | ropes of pearls |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **shine** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **glow** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **day** |  | that |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **mond** |  | di |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 6 | **flash** | past | a monds |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 7 | **sparkle** | participle | a monds *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like the sunlight | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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:** «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 18442 (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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- ↑ back to [Cornelia's Jewels.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/29/)