---
title: Long, long ago there stood in the midst of a country covered with la… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Long, long ago there stood in the midst of a country covered with lakes a vast stretch of moorland called the Tontlawald, on which no man ever dared set foot. Who acts: country, man. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Long, long ago there stood in the midst of a country covered with lakes a vast stretch of moorland called the Tontlawald, on which no man ever dared set foot.

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**Who acts:** country, man · **What happens:** stand, cover, call, dare · **To what, where:** midst, lakes, vast stretch, set foot, Tontlawald · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (country, man), 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:pg641:2:1
# text = Long, long ago there stood in the midst of a country covered with lakes a vast stretch of moorland called the Tontlawald, on which no man ever dared set foot.
1	Long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
4	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
6	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	midst	midst	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	country	country	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
13	covered	cover	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	acl	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	lakes	lake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obj	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	vast	vast	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	stretch	stretch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	moorland	moorland	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
21	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	acl	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	Tontlawald	Tontlawald	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	21	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
25	on	on	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	30	obl	_	_
27	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	28	det	_	_
28	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	nsubj	_	_
29	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	30	advmod	_	_
30	dared	dare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	acl:relcl	_	_
31	set	set	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	amod	_	_
32	foot	foot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stand** | past |  |  |  | the midst of a country; there |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in midst=Location |
| 2 | **cover** | participle | a country *not said here* | lakes |  |  |  |  | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme lake=Destination |
| 3 | **call** | participle |  | a vast stretch of moorland *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **dare** | past | no man | set foot |  | the Tontlawald | ever |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent foot=Recipient |

<!-- .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 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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