---
title: It was under these burdocks that a duck had built herself a warm nes… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was under these burdocks that a duck had built herself a warm nest, and was not sitting all day on six pretty eggs. Who acts: family, burdocks. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 8, sentence 62

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It was under these burdocks that a duck had built herself a warm nest, and was not sitting all day on six pretty eggs.

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**Who acts:** family, burdocks · **What happens:** be, build, not sit · **To what, where:** burdocks, six pretty eggs

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (family, burdocks), 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:pg3027:8:62
# text = It was under these burdocks that a duck had built herself a warm nest, and was not sitting all day on six pretty eggs.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	under	under	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	burdocks	burdock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	built	build	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl:relcl	_	_
11	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	10	obj	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	warm	warm	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	nest	nest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	19	advmod	_	_
19	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
20	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	21	det	_	_
21	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl:unmarked	_	_
22	on	on	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	six	six	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	25	nummod	_	_
24	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	eggs	egg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | family |  |  | this burdocks |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **build** | past · perfect · passive |  | this burdocks |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **sit** | past · progressive | this burdocks *not said here* |  |  | six pretty eggs | day |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on egg=Location |

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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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