---
title: For a long while he watched in vain; everything seemed asleep, and n… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: For a long while he watched in vain; everything seemed asleep, and not even a bird stirred overhead. Who acts: Contes, everything. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 26, 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/pg3282/26/47/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 26, sentence 47

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For a long while he watched in vain; everything seemed asleep, and not even a bird stirred overhead.

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**Who acts:** Contes, everything · **What happens:** watch, seem, stir · **To what, where:** vain, bird

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 26. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Contes, everything), 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:pg3282:26:47
# text = For a long while he watched in vain; everything seemed asleep, and not even a bird stirred overhead.
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	obl	_	_
4	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	watched	watch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	vain	vain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
10	everything	everything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	11	nsubj	_	_
11	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
12	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
16	even	even	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	xcomp	_	_
19	stirred	stir	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	acl	_	_
20	overhead	overhead	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **watch** | past | Contes |  |  | vain |  | for a long | vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.theme NP.location»: agent=Agent for long=Theme in vain=Location |
| 2 | **seem** | past | everything | a bird |  |  |  | asleep *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **stir** | participle |  | a bird *not said here* |  |  |  | overhead *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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