---
title: A shepherd stood on a mound watching over them, and by his side was… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A shepherd stood on a mound watching over them, and by his side was a dog, as large as a horse nine winters old. Who acts: shepherd, mound. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 38, 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/pg3454/38/80/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 38, sentence 80

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A shepherd stood on a mound watching over them, and by his side was a dog, as large as a horse nine winters old.

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**Who acts:** shepherd, mound · **What happens:** stand, watch, be · **To what, where:** mound, dog

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 38. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (shepherd, mound), 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:pg3454:38:80
# text = A shepherd stood on a mound watching over them, and by his side was a dog, as large as a horse nine winters old.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	shepherd	shepherd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	mound	mound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	watching	watch	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	_
8	over	over	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
12	by	by	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	dog	dog	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	as	as	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	parataxis	_	_
21	as	as	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
24	nine	nine	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	25	nummod	_	_
25	winters	winter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obl:unmarked	_	_
26	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past | a shepherd |  |  | a mound |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on mound=Location |
| 2 | **watch** | gerund | a mound *not said here* |  |  |  |  | over comrade | vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent over they=Location |
| 3 | **is a** | past |  | a dog |  |  |  | by shepherd's side | tree rules |

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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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