---
title: ‘Ah! to grow and grow, and become great and old! that is the only pl… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Ah! to grow and grow, and become great and old! that is the only pleasure in life,’ thought the tree. Who acts: that. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 11, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/11/7/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 11, sentence 7

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‘Ah! to grow and grow, and become great and old! that is the only pleasure in life,’ thought the tree.

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**Who acts:** that · **What happens:** grow, become, be, think · **To what, where:** only pleasure, life, tree · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (that), 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:pg5615:11:7
# text = ‘Ah! to grow and grow, and become great and old! that is the only pleasure in life,’ thought the tree.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	grow	grow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	ccomp	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	grow	grow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	become	become	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
11	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	xcomp	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
15	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	nsubj	_	_
16	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	pleasure	pleasure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	parataxis	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
24	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	24	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grow** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **grow** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **become** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | great *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **is a** | present | that | the only pleasure |  | life |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **think** *speech: other* | past |  | the tree |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent tree=Attribute clause=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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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