---
title: When these were opened, every shell was found to contain a large and… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: When these were opened, every shell was found to contain a large and beautiful pearl. Who acts: shell. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, sentence 18

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When these were opened, every shell was found to contain a large and beautiful pearl.

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**Who acts:** shell · **What happens:** open, find, contain · **To what, where:** these, shell, large pearl

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (shell), 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:pg641:24:18
# text = When these were opened, every shell was found to contain a large and beautiful pearl.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	these	this	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	opened	open	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	7	det	_	_
7	shell	shell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	found	find	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	parataxis	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	contain	contain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
13	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	conj	_	_
16	pearl	pearl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	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 | **open** | past · passive |  | these |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **find** | past · passive |  | every shell |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Attribute clause=Theme |
| 3 | **contain** | to-infinitive | every shell *not said here* | a large pearl |  |  |  |  | vn comprise-107.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot pearl=Theme |

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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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