---
title: And as he spoke a cloud spread itself over the sun’s face, blotting… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And as he spoke a cloud spread itself over the sun’s face, blotting out his rays. Who acts: king. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 17, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 17, sentence 60

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And as he spoke a cloud spread itself over the sun’s face, blotting out his rays.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** speak, spread, blot out, ray · **To what, where:** cloud, face, rays · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), 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:pg3282:17:60
# text = And as he spoke a cloud spread itself over the sun’s face, blotting out his rays.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	cloud	cloud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	spread	spread	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	itself	itself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	7	obj	_	_
9	over	over	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’s	's	PART	POS	_	11	case	_	_
13	face	face	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	blotting	blot	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
16	out	out	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	rays	ray	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | king | a cloud |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **spread** | past |  | cloud |  | the sun's face |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent itself=Theme over face=Destination |
| 3 | **blot out** | gerund |  | king's rays |  |  |  |  | vn fill-9.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme ray=Destination |
| 4 | **ray** |  | king |  |  |  |  |  | nom ray «phenomenon transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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