---
title: A yawning abyss, with certain and terrible death at the bottom, reek… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A yawning abyss, with certain and terrible death at the bottom, reeking with half-decayed bodies of horses and riders! 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 34

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A yawning abyss, with certain and terrible death at the bottom, reeking with half-decayed bodies of horses and riders!

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**What happens:** yawn, reek, decay

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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: 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:pg640:22:34
# text = A yawning abyss, with certain and terrible death at the bottom, reeking with half-decayed bodies of horses and riders!
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	yawning	yawn	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	amod	_	_
3	abyss	abyss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
5	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
6	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	terrible	terrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	_
9	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	appos	_	_
10	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	bottom	bottom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	reeking	reek	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
16	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	18	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	decayed	decay	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	amod	_	_
19	bodies	body	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	horses	horse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nmod	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	riders	rider	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **yawn** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **reek** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | with decayed bodies of horses and riders | vn smell\_emission-43.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **decay** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn entity\_specific\_cos-45.5 «NP.patient V»: agent=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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