---
title: There lies the mill at the bottom of the sea, and still, day by day,… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: There lies the mill at the bottom of the sea, and still, day by day, it grinds on; and that is why the sea is salt. Who acts: ship, that, sea. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Why the Sea Is Salt, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Why the Sea Is Salt, sentence 62

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There lies the mill at the bottom of the sea, and still, day by day, it grinds on; and that is why the sea is salt.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** ship, that, sea · **What happens:** lie, grind on, be · **To what, where:** mill, bottom, salt

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Why the Sea Is Salt. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ship, that, sea), 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:pg503:20:62
# text = There lies the mill at the bottom of the sea, and still, day by day, it grinds on; and that is why the sea is salt.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	lies	lie	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	mill	mill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	bottom	bottom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	still	still	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
15	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl:unmarked	_	_
16	by	by	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	grinds	grind	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	RP	_	20	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	26	nsubj	_	_
25	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
26	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	2	conj	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	nsubj	_	_
29	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	30	cop	_	_
30	salt	salt	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | present |  | the mill |  | the bottom of the sea; there | still; day |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location mill=Theme |
| 2 | **grind on** | present | ship |  |  |  |  |  | vn carve-21.2-1 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | present | that |  |  |  |  | why *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **is a** | present | the sea | salt |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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