---
title: The moment it touched the soil it became a huge rock, whose steep si… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The moment it touched the soil it became a huge rock, whose steep sides were smooth as glass, and on the top of it our hero hastily seated himself. Who acts: moment, bag, steep sides, hero. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35, with its dependency tree and
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/35/17/)

<!-- 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 Pink Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/) / [The Pink Fairy Book, part 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/35/) / 17

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The moment it touched the soil it became a huge rock, whose steep sides were smooth as glass, and on the top of it our hero hastily seated himself.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** moment, bag, steep sides, hero · **What happens:** touch, become, be, seat · **To what, where:** soil, huge rock, man, top

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (moment, bag, steep sides, hero), 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:pg5615:35:17
# text = The moment it touched the soil it became a huge rock, whose steep sides were smooth as glass, and on the top of it our hero hastily seated himself.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	soil	soil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	huge	huge	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	rock	rock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	15	nmod:poss	_	_
14	steep	steep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	sides	side	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
16	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	smooth	smooth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	acl:relcl	_	_
18	as	as	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	glass	glass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
22	on	on	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nmod	_	_
27	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	28	nmod:poss	_	_
28	hero	hero	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	nsubj	_	_
29	hastily	hastily	ADV	RB	_	30	advmod	_	_
30	seated	seat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
31	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	30	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **touch** | past | the moment | the soil |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme soil=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **become** | past | bag | a huge rock |  |  |  |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | past | steep sides |  |  |  |  | as glass; smooth *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **seat** | past | our hero | man |  | the top of bag |  | hastily *property* | vn fit-54.3 «NP.location V NP»: agent=Location himself=Value |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/35/16/)
- next →: [sentence 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/35/18/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/35/)