---
title: The sheep was pretty heavy, but the good man was merciful and stagge… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The sheep was pretty heavy, but the good man was merciful and staggered along as best he could under his load. Who acts: sheep, good man. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 10, 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/pg3454/10/35/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 10, sentence 35

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The sheep was pretty heavy, but the good man was merciful and staggered along as best he could under his load.

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**Who acts:** sheep, good man · **What happens:** be, stagger · **To what, where:** best, load

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sheep, good man), 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:pg3454:10:35
# text = The sheep was pretty heavy, but the good man was merciful and staggered along as best he could under his load.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	pretty	pretty	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	heavy	heavy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	merciful	merciful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	staggered	stagger	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
15	along	along	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
16	as	as	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	14	obj	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	_
20	under	under	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	load	load	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the sheep |  |  |  |  | heavy, pretty *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | the good man |  |  |  |  | merciful *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **stagger** | past | the good man *not said here* | best |  | sheep's load |  | along *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus good=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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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