---
title: The waves rocked the girls softly, as if they were lying in a cradle… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The waves rocked the girls softly, as if they were lying in a cradle, and they floated on till they met other boats filled with men, singing and making merry. Who acts: waves. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/63/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [A Tale of the Tontlawald](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/) / 63

# The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 63

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The waves rocked the girls softly, as if they were lying in a cradle, and they floated on till they met other boats filled with men, singing and making merry.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** waves · **What happens:** rock, lie, float, meet, fill, sing · **To what, where:** girls, cradle, other boats

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (waves), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg641:2:63
# text = The waves rocked the girls softly, as if they were lying in a cradle, and they floated on till they met other boats filled with men, singing and making merry.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	waves	wave	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	rocked	rock	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	softly	softly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	cradle	cradle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	floated	float	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
20	on	on	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
21	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
22	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	advcl	_	_
24	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	boats	boat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	_
26	filled	fill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	25	acl	_	_
27	with	with	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
30	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	23	advcl	_	_
31	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	32	cc	_	_
32	making	make	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	30	conj	_	_
33	merry	merry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	32	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **rock** | past | the waves | the girls |  |  |  | softly *property* | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location girl=Theme |
| 2 | **lie** | past · progressive | waves *= wave* |  |  | a cradle |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in cradle=Location |
| 3 | **float** | past | waves *= wave* |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **meet** | past | waves *= wave* | other boats |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boat=Co-Agent |
| 5 | **fill** | participle |  | other boats *not said here* |  |  |  | with men | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent with man=Instrument |
| 6 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | waves *= wave* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 7 | **make** | gerund | waves *= wave* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | merry *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 62](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/62/)
- next →: [sentence 64](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/64/)
- ↑ back to [A Tale of the Tontlawald](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/2/)