---
title: He lived by the shore of the big sea; where else could he live? — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He lived by the shore of the big sea; where else could he live? Who acts: fisherman. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23, 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/pg3454/23/18/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23, sentence 18

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He lived by the shore of the big sea; where else could he live?

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**Who acts:** fisherman · **What happens:** live

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fisherman), 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:pg3454:23:18
# text = He lived by the shore of the big sea; where else could he live?
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	by	by	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	shore	shore	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	15	advmod	_	_
12	else	else	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **live** | past | fisherman |  |  |  |  | by the shore of the big sea | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by shore=Location |
| 2 | **live** | could | fisherman |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «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 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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