---
title: Beside them on the ground lay a little lamb, and behind them perched… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Beside them on the ground lay a little lamb, and behind them perched a little white dove with its head tucked under its wings. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Snow-white and Rose-red, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Snow-white and Rose-red, sentence 15

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Beside them on the ground lay a little lamb, and behind them perched a little white dove with its head tucked under its wings.

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**What happens:** lie, perch, tuck · **To what, where:** little lamb, ground, little white dove, wings

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Snow-white and Rose-red. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg503:36:15
# text = Beside them on the ground lay a little lamb, and behind them perched a little white dove with its head tucked under its wings.
1	Beside	beside	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obl	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
6	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	lamb	lamb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
12	behind	behind	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	_
14	perched	perch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
16	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	dove	dove	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	_
19	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
22	tucked	tuck	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	acl	_	_
23	under	under	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** | past |  | a little lamb |  | the ground |  | beside snowflakes *= snowflake* | tree rules |
| 2 | **perch** | past |  | a little white dove |  |  |  | behind snowflakes *= snowflake*; with dove's head | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent dove=Theme behind they=Destination |
| 3 | **tuck** | participle |  | a little white dove *not said here* |  | dove's wings |  |  | vn funnel-9.3-1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent under wing=Trajectory |

<!-- .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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