---
title: It was all made of shells, blue and green and pink and lilac and whi… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was all made of shells, blue and green and pink and lilac and white, shading into each other till you could not tell where one colour ended and the other began. Who acts: you, one colour, other. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 34, with its dependenc
---

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 34, sentence 4

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It was all made of shells, blue and green and pink and lilac and white, shading into each other till you could not tell where one colour ended and the other began.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, one colour, other · **What happens:** make, shade, not tell, end, begin · **To what, where:** palace, each · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 34. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, one colour, other), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3454:34:4
# text = It was all made of shells, blue and green and pink and lilac and white, shading into each other till you could not tell where one colour ended and the other began.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
3	all	all	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	shells	shell	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	blue	blue	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	conj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	pink	pink	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	conj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	lilac	lilac	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	conj	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
18	shading	shade	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
19	into	into	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	18	obl	_	_
21	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	fixed	_	_
22	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	26	mark	_	_
23	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
24	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
25	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	26	advmod	_	_
26	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	advcl	_	_
27	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	30	advmod	_	_
28	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	29	nummod	_	_
29	colour	colour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	nsubj	_	_
30	ended	end	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	ccomp	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	34	cc	_	_
32	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	33	det	_	_
33	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	34	nsubj	_	_
34	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	30	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | past · passive |  | palace |  |  |  | of shells; all *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product |
| 2 | **shade** | gerund |  |  |  | each |  |  | vn defend-72.3 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | could | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **end** | past | one colour |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 5 | **begin** | past | the other |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

<!-- .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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