---
title: The moon was shining clearly, and the white pebbles which lay in fro… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The moon was shining clearly, and the white pebbles which lay in front of the house glittered like bits of silver. Who acts: moon, white pebbles. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Hansel and Grettel, sentence 14

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The moon was shining clearly, and the white pebbles which lay in front of the house glittered like bits of silver.

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**Who acts:** moon, white pebbles · **What happens:** shine, lay, glitter · **To what, where:** white pebbles, front, house

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (moon, white pebbles), 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:pg503:35:14
# text = The moon was shining clearly, and the white pebbles which lay in front of the house glittered like bits of silver.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	moon	moon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	shining	shine	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	clearly	clearly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	pebbles	pebble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
11	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
12	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	front	front	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
18	glittered	glitter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	17	acl	_	_
19	like	like	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	bits	bit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	silver	silver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shine** | past · progressive | the moon | the white pebbles |  |  |  | clearly *property* | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **lay** | present | the white pebbles |  |  | front of the house |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent in front=Destination |
| 3 | **glitter** | participle |  | the house *not said here* |  |  |  | like bits of silver | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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