---
title: The ball seemed always within his grasp, yet he could never catch it… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The ball seemed always within his grasp, yet he could never catch it; it went quicker and quicker, and the boy grew more and more excited. Who acts: ball, boy. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/6/92/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6, sentence 92

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The ball seemed always within his grasp, yet he could never catch it; it went quicker and quicker, and the boy grew more and more excited.

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**Who acts:** ball, boy · **What happens:** seem, not catch, go, grow, grasp · **To what, where:** ball

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ball, boy), 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:pg3282:6:92
# text = The ball seemed always within his grasp, yet he could never catch it; it went quicker and quicker, and the boy grew more and more excited.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	3	advmod	_	_
5	within	within	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	grasp	grasp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	yet	yet	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
18	quicker	quick	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	17	advmod	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	quicker	quick	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
25	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	conj	_	_
26	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	25	advmod	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
28	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	29	advmod	_	_
29	excited	excited	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | past | the ball |  |  |  |  | within boy's grasp; always *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **catch** | could | boy | ball |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **go** | past | ball |  |  |  |  | quick *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **grow** | past | the boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **grasp** |  | boy |  |  |  |  |  | nom grasp «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 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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