---
title: The whole road was covered with them, and the banks on each side wer… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The whole road was covered with them, and the banks on each side were beginning to disappear. Who acts: banks. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 32

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The whole road was covered with them, and the banks on each side were beginning to disappear.

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**Who acts:** banks · **What happens:** cover, begin, disappear · **To what, where:** whole road

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, 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 (banks), 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:pg3282:9:32
# text = The whole road was covered with them, and the banks on each side were beginning to disappear.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	covered	cover	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	banks	bank	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
12	on	on	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	14	det	_	_
14	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
15	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	beginning	begin	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	disappear	disappear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cover** | past · passive |  | the whole road |  |  |  | with fishes *= fish* | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: subject=Destination with they=Theme |
| 2 | **begin** | past · progressive | the banks on each side |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **disappear** | to-infinitive | the banks on each side *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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