---
title: On the other side of the river lay a wide plain, and here the cows l… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: On the other side of the river lay a wide plain, and here the cows lay down, while Covan looked about him. Who acts: cows, Covan. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 30, 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/pg3027/30/66/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 30, sentence 66

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On the other side of the river lay a wide plain, and here the cows lay down, while Covan looked about him.

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**Who acts:** cows, Covan · **What happens:** lie, lay down, look · **To what, where:** wide plain, other side

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 30. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cows, Covan), 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:pg3027:30:66
# text = On the other side of the river lay a wide plain, and here the cows lay down, while Covan looked about him.
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
8	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	wide	wide	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	plain	plain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	advmod	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	cows	cow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
17	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
18	down	down	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
21	Covan	Covan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
22	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
23	about	about	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past |  | a wide plain |  | the other side of the river |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location plain=Theme |
| 2 | **lay down** | present | the cows |  |  | here |  | down *property* | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **look** | past | Covan |  |  |  |  | about water | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent about he=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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