---
title: ‘But there are streaks in the north-western sky, and Prince was eati… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But there are streaks in the north-western sky, and Prince was eating grass this evening,’ said the old man. Who acts: Prince, old man. 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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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 23, sentence 92

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‘But there are streaks in the north-western sky, and Prince was eating grass this evening,’ said the old man.

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**Who acts:** Prince, old man · **What happens:** be, eat, say · **To what, where:** streaks, western sky, grass · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Prince, old 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:pg3454:23:92
# text = ‘But there are streaks in the north-western sky, and Prince was eating grass this evening,’ said the old man.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
3	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	4	expl	_	_
4	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	streaks	streak	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	ccomp	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
8	north	north	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	western	western	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	sky	sky	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	acl	_	_
17	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
18	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	det	_	_
19	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	22	punct	_	_
22	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	22	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present |  | streaks |  | the western sky |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **eat** | past · progressive | Prince | grass |  |  | evening |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent grass=Patient |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=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 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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