---
title: Nor was that strange, for the hill was as smooth as a glass window-p… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Nor was that strange, for the hill was as smooth as a glass window-pane, and as steep as the side of a house. Who acts: Nor, hill. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Princess on the Glass Hill, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Princess on the Glass Hill, sentence 54

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Nor was that strange, for the hill was as smooth as a glass window-pane, and as steep as the side of a house.

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**Who acts:** Nor, hill · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Princess on the Glass Hill. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nor, hill), 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:pg503:48:54
# text = Nor was that strange, for the hill was as smooth as a glass window-pane, and as steep as the side of a house.
1	Nor	Nor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
4	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
6	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	hill	hill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	as	as	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	smooth	smooth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
12	as	as	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
14	glass	glass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	_
15	window	window	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	pane	pane	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	as	as	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
21	steep	steep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	_
22	as	as	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | Nor |  |  |  |  | strange *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | the hill |  |  |  |  | as a glass window pane; smooth *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** |  | Nor *not said here* |  |  |  |  | as the side of a house | tree rules |

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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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