---
title: But one evening when the moon was full they sat together watching th… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But one evening when the moon was full they sat together watching their flocks, and the shepherd played upon his flute. Who acts: moon, friends, shepherd. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide World, part 3, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/21/39/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide World, part 3, sentence 39

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But one evening when the moon was full they sat together watching their flocks, and the shepherd played upon his flute.

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**Who acts:** moon, friends, shepherd · **What happens:** be, sit, watch, play · **To what, where:** flocks

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide World, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (moon, friends, shepherd), 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:pg640:21:39
# text = But one evening when the moon was full they sat together watching their flocks, and the shepherd played upon his flute.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	8	mark	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	moon	moon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	full	full	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
11	together	together	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	watching	watch	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
13	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	flocks	flock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	shepherd	shepherd	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
20	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	flute	flute	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the moon |  |  |  | evening | full *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **sit** | past | friends *= friend* |  |  |  |  | together *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **watch** | gerund | friends *= friend* *not said here* | friends's flocks |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent flock=Theme |
| 4 | **play** | past | the shepherd |  |  |  |  | upon shepherd's flute | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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.

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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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