---
title: “Little boy, gather some moss from the spring over there, and let yo… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Little boy, gather some moss from the spring over there, and let your brothers smell it.” Who acts: Little boy, brothers. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 15, sentence 27

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“Little boy, gather some moss from the spring over there, and let your brothers smell it.”

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**Who acts:** Little boy, brothers · **What happens:** gather, let, smell · **To what, where:** moss

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, 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 (Little boy, brothers), 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:pg3282:15:27
# text = “Little boy, gather some moss from the spring over there, and let your brothers smell it.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	gather	gather	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	7	det	_	_
7	moss	moss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	from	from	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	spring	spring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
11	over	over	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
16	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
18	smell	smell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **gather** *in a quote* | infinitive | Little boy | some moss |  | there | spring |  | vn deduce-97.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent moss=Theme |
| 2 | **let** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V PP.recipient»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **smell** *in a quote* | present | your brothers | moss |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Stimulus |

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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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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