---
title: The moss was dry and the plants green, while the grass seemed all al… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The moss was dry and the plants green, while the grass seemed all alive with the hum of bees and cockchafers. Who acts: moss, plants, grass, bees. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Underground Workers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Underground Workers, sentence 16

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The moss was dry and the plants green, while the grass seemed all alive with the hum of bees and cockchafers.

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**Who acts:** moss, plants, grass, bees · **What happens:** be, seem, hum

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Underground Workers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (moss, plants, grass, bees), 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:pg641:25:16
# text = The moss was dry and the plants green, while the grass seemed all alive with the hum of bees and cockchafers.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	moss	moss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	dry	dry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	plants	plant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
8	green	green	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
14	all	all	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	alive	alive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	xcomp	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	hum	hum	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	bees	bee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nmod	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	cockchafers	cockchafer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the moss |  |  |  |  | dry *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | the plants |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **seem** | past | the grass |  |  |  |  | with the hum of bees and cockchafers; alive *property* | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **hum** |  | bees and cockchafers |  |  |  |  |  | nom hum «state intransitive»: of=agent |

<!-- .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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