---
title: The earth became softer, the sun hotter, the birds sang, and the flo… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The earth became softer, the sun hotter, the birds sang, and the flowers once more appeared in the grass. Who acts: earth, birds, flowers. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 9, sentence 98

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The earth became softer, the sun hotter, the birds sang, and the flowers once more appeared in the grass.

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**Who acts:** earth, birds, flowers · **What happens:** become, sing, appear · **To what, where:** grass

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (earth, birds, flowers), 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:pg3027:9:98
# text = The earth became softer, the sun hotter, the birds sang, and the flowers once more appeared in the grass.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	softer	soft	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	hotter	hot	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	sang	sing	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	flowers	flower	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj	_	_
17	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	19	advmod	_	_
18	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	19	advmod	_	_
19	appeared	appear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **become** | past | the earth |  |  |  |  | soft *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | past | the birds |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |
| 3 | **appear** | past | the flowers |  |  | the grass |  | once *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in grass=Location |

<!-- .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:** «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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