---
title: Mercifully, the cow slept through it all, or by her cries she would… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Mercifully, the cow slept through it all, or by her cries she would have awakened the master. Who acts: cow. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 2, sentence 116

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Mercifully, the cow slept through it all, or by her cries she would have awakened the master.

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**Who acts:** cow · **What happens:** sleep, awaken, cry · **To what, where:** brain, master

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cow), 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:pg641:10:116
# text = Mercifully, the cow slept through it all, or by her cries she would have awakened the master.
1	Mercifully	mercifully	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	slept	sleep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	through	through	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
8	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	7	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
10	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
11	by	by	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	cries	cry	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	_
14	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	aux	_	_
17	awakened	awaken	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	master	master	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sleep** | past | the cow | brain |  |  |  | mercifully *property* | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 2 | **awaken** | would · perfect | cow | the master |  |  |  | by cow's cries | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location master=Theme |
| 3 | **cry** |  | cow |  |  |  |  |  | nom cry «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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