---
title: And in an instant his scales might be seen flashing quickly along. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And in an instant his scales might be seen flashing quickly along. Who acts: scales. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 15, 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/pg3027/15/35/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 15, sentence 35

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And in an instant his scales might be seen flashing quickly along.

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**Who acts:** scales · **What happens:** see, flash · **To what, where:** scales, instant

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (scales), 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:pg3027:15:35
# text = And in an instant his scales might be seen flashing quickly along.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
2	in	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	instant	instant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	scales	scale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
7	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
10	flashing	flash	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	xcomp	_	_
11	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	along	along	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | might · passive |  | falcon's scales |  | a instant |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **flash** | gerund | falcon's scales *not said here* |  |  |  |  | along, quickly *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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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