---
title: He opened his mouth, but the black cloud sailed past and not as much… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He opened his mouth, but the black cloud sailed past and not as much as a drop of dew moistened his dry lips. Who acts: youth, black cloud, dew. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Glass Mountain(16), part 1, sentence 30

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He opened his mouth, but the black cloud sailed past and not as much as a drop of dew moistened his dry lips.

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**Who acts:** youth, black cloud, dew · **What happens:** open, sail, moisten · **To what, where:** mouth, dry lips

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Glass Mountain(16), 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 (youth, black cloud, dew), 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:pg640:22:30
# text = He opened his mouth, but the black cloud sailed past and not as much as a drop of dew moistened his dry lips.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	opened	open	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	cloud	cloud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	sailed	sail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
11	past	past	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
14	as	as	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	conj	_	_
16	as	as	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	drop	drop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	dew	dew	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
21	moistened	moisten	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	20	acl	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
23	dry	dry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	lips	lip	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **open** | past | youth | youth's mouth |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location mouth=Theme |
| 2 | **sail** | past | the black cloud |  |  |  |  | past *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **moisten** | participle | dew *not said here* | youth's dry lips |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent lip=Patient |

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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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