---
title: The walls were of turquoises, and upon a low couch lay a lovely lady… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The walls were of turquoises, and upon a low couch lay a lovely lady, who seemed to be asleep. Who acts: walls, lovely lady. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Branch, part 1, sentence 66

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The walls were of turquoises, and upon a low couch lay a lovely lady, who seemed to be asleep.

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**Who acts:** walls, lovely lady · **What happens:** be, lie, seem · **To what, where:** lovely lady

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Branch, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (walls, lovely lady), 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:pg540:34:66
# text = The walls were of turquoises, and upon a low couch lay a lovely lady, who seemed to be asleep.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	walls	wall	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	turquoises	turquoise	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
8	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	low	low	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	couch	couch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
12	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	lovely	lovely	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	18	nsubj	_	_
18	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	acl:relcl	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	cop	_	_
21	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the walls |  |  |  |  | of turquoises | tree rules |
| 2 | **lie** | past |  | a lovely lady |  |  |  | upon a low couch | tree rules |
| 3 | **seem** | past | a lovely lady |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | to-infinitive | a lovely lady *not said here* |  |  |  |  | asleep *property* | 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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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