---
title: A reindeer calf is the swiftest of all things living. — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A reindeer calf is the swiftest of all things living. Who acts: reindeer calf, things. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 36, 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/pg3027/36/99/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 36, sentence 99

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A reindeer calf is the swiftest of all things living.

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**Who acts:** reindeer calf, things · **What happens:** be, live

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 36. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (reindeer calf, things), 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:pg3027:36:99
# text = A reindeer calf is the swiftest of all things living.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	reindeer	reindeer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	calf	calf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	swiftest	swift	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	0	root	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	9	det	_	_
9	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
10	living	live	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	9	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | a reindeer calf |  |  |  |  | of all things; swift *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **live** | gerund | all things *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «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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