---
title: He stood quite still while Bellah scrambled up, then he started off,… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He stood quite still while Bellah scrambled up, then he started off, his pace growing quicker and quicker, till at length the girl could hardly see the trees and houses as they flashed past. Who acts: stick, Bellah, pace, girl. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Boo
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/34/56/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 34, sentence 56

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He stood quite still while Bellah scrambled up, then he started off, his pace growing quicker and quicker, till at length the girl could hardly see the trees and houses as they flashed past.

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**Who acts:** stick, Bellah, pace, girl, houses · **What happens:** stand, scramble up, start off, grow, see, flash · **To what, where:** trees

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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 (stick, Bellah, pace, girl), 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:pg3454:34:56
# text = He stood quite still while Bellah scrambled up, then he started off, his pace growing quicker and quicker, till at length the girl could hardly see the trees and houses as they flashed past.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	still	still	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
5	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	Bellah	Bellah	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	scrambled	scramble	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
8	up	up	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	12	advmod	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
13	off	off	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	pace	pace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	growing	grow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	conj	_	_
18	quicker	quick	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	17	xcomp	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	quicker	quick	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
22	till	till	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	at	at	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obl	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nsubj	_	_
27	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
28	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	_
29	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	conj	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	29	obj	_	_
32	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
33	houses	house	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	conj	_	_
34	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	36	mark	_	_
35	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	36	nsubj	_	_
36	flashed	flash	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	29	advcl	_	_
37	past	past	ADV	RB	_	36	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | stick |  |  |  | still |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **scramble up** | past | Bellah |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **start off** | past | stick |  |  |  | then |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 4 | **grow** | gerund | stick's pace |  |  |  |  | quick *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **see** | could | the girl | the trees and houses |  |  | till length | hardly *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer tree=Stimulus |
| 6 | **flash** | past | houses *= house* |  |  |  |  | past *property* | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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