---
title: I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, and slept so… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, and slept sounder than ever I did in my life for about nine hours. Who acts: I, grass. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Chapter I, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/43/19/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Blue Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/) / [Chapter I](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/43/) / 19

# The Blue Fairy Book, Chapter I, sentence 19

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, and slept sounder than ever I did in my life for about nine hours.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, grass · **What happens:** lay down, be, sleep, do · **To what, where:** grass, life

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Chapter I. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, grass), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg503:43:19
# text = I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, and slept sounder than ever I did in my life for about nine hours.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	down	down	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	very	very	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	parataxis	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	slept	sleep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
17	sounder	sound	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	16	xcomp	_	_
18	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
19	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	21	advmod	_	_
20	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
25	for	for	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
26	about	about	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	_
27	nine	nine	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	28	nummod	_	_
28	hours	hour	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay down** | present | I |  |  | the grass |  | down *property* | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent on grass=Destination |
| 2 | **is** | past | the grass |  |  |  |  | short *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | the grass *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **sleep** | past | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  | sound *property* | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **do** | past | I |  |  | my life | ever; hour |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/43/18/)
- next →: [sentence 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/43/20/)
- ↑ back to [Chapter I](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg503/43/)