---
title: And certainly it was a cow, a fine red cow, fat and flourishing, and… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And certainly it was a cow, a fine red cow, fat and flourishing, and looking as if it had been fed all its days on spinach. Who acts: door. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24, sentence 4

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And certainly it was a cow, a fine red cow, fat and flourishing, and looking as if it had been fed all its days on spinach.

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**Who acts:** door · **What happens:** be, flourish, look, feed · **To what, where:** cow, door

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (door), 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:pg3454:24:4
# text = And certainly it was a cow, a fine red cow, fat and flourishing, and looking as if it had been fed all its days on spinach.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
9	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
10	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	fat	fat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	conj	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	flourishing	flourish	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	looking	look	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	_
19	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
20	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj:pass	_	_
22	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
23	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	24	aux:pass	_	_
24	fed	feed	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	advcl	_	_
25	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	27	det:predet	_	_
26	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obl	_	_
28	on	on	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
29	spinach	spinach	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | door | a cow and a fine red cow and fat |  |  |  | certainly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **flourish** | gerund | door *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **look** | gerund | door *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 4 | **feed** | past · perfect · passive |  | door |  |  | day |  | vn feeding-39.7 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: subject=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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