---
title: A desert lay spread out before him, whose aspect made his hair stand… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A desert lay spread out before him, whose aspect made his hair stand on end. Who acts: aspect. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1, sentence 111

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A desert lay spread out before him, whose aspect made his hair stand on end.

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**Who acts:** aspect · **What happens:** spread out, make · **To what, where:** desert, hair stand, end

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, 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 (aspect), 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:pg641:19:111
# text = A desert lay spread out before him, whose aspect made his hair stand on end.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	desert	desert	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	spread	spread	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	out	out	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	before	before	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	aspect	aspect	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	stand	stand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spread out** | present · passive |  | a desert |  |  | before dragon |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme before he=Destination |
| 2 | **make** | past | aspect | dragon's hair stand |  |  | on end |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset stand=Product |

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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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