---
title: They anchored at the mouth of a great river where the shores were as… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They anchored at the mouth of a great river where the shores were as green as the greenest velvet. Who acts: eyes, shores. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 14, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 14, sentence 123

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They anchored at the mouth of a great river where the shores were as green as the greenest velvet.

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**Who acts:** eyes, shores · **What happens:** anchor, be · **To what, where:** mouth

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eyes, shores), 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:pg3454:14:123
# text = They anchored at the mouth of a great river where the shores were as green as the greenest velvet.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	anchored	anchor	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
10	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	15	advmod	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	shores	shore	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
13	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	as	as	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
16	as	as	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	greenest	green	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	19	amod	_	_
19	velvet	velvet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **anchor** | past | eyes *= eye* |  |  | the mouth of a great river |  |  | vn tape-22.4 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | past | the shores |  |  |  |  | as the greenest velvet; green *property* | tree rules |

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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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