---
title: Short as Miranda’s absence had been, it had seemed like a hundred ye… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Short as Miranda’s absence had been, it had seemed like a hundred years to the King of the Sheep. Who acts: absence, Miranda. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Sheep, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Wonderful Sheep, part 2, sentence 75

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Short as Miranda’s absence had been, it had seemed like a hundred years to the King of the Sheep.

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**Who acts:** absence, Miranda · **What happens:** be, have, seem, absent

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Wonderful Sheep, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (absence, Miranda), 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:pg503:31:75
# text = Short as Miranda’s absence had been, it had seemed like a hundred years to the King of the Sheep.
1	Short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	parataxis	_	_
2	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
3	Miranda	Miranda	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’s	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	absence	absence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	been	be	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	parataxis	_	_
11	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	like	like	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	hundred	hundred	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	nummod	_	_
15	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	Sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past · perfect | Miranda's absence |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | absence |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **seem** | past |  |  |  |  | year |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **absent** |  | Miranda |  |  |  |  |  | nom absence «state transitive»: poss=agent |

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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 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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