---
title: But it was no tree he leant against, but a gallows on which two rave… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But it was no tree he leant against, but a gallows on which two ravens were seated. Who acts: sun. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 1, 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/pg640/14/27/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Grateful Beasts(11), part 1, sentence 27

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But it was no tree he leant against, but a gallows on which two ravens were seated.

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**Who acts:** sun · **What happens:** be, seat · **To what, where:** leant, gallows

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Beasts(11), 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 (sun), 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:pg640:14:27
# text = But it was no tree he leant against, but a gallows on which two ravens were seated.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	5	det	_	_
5	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	leant	leant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	against	against	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	gallows	gallows	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	which	which	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	16	det	_	_
15	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	ravens	raven	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
17	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux:pass	_	_
18	seated	seat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | sun | leant |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **seat** | past · passive |  | a gallows  which two ravens |  |  |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP.location V NP»: subject=Value |

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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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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