---
title: But early that morning, when the stars were growing pale in the sky,… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But early that morning, when the stars were growing pale in the sky, two little boys with golden hair and stars on their foreheads were born to Laptitza. Who acts: stars. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Boys With the Golden Stars, 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/pg641/35/32/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Boys With the Golden Stars](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/35/) / 32

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Boys With the Golden Stars, sentence 32

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But early that morning, when the stars were growing pale in the sky, two little boys with golden hair and stars on their foreheads were born to Laptitza.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** stars · **What happens:** grow, bear · **To what, where:** sky, foreheads, Laptitza

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Boys With the Golden Stars. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stars), 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:pg641:35:32
# text = But early that morning, when the stars were growing pale in the sky, two little boys with golden hair and stars on their foreheads were born to Laptitza.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	early	early	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
3	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	morning	morning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	10	mark	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	stars	star	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
9	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	growing	grow	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	acl	_	_
11	pale	pale	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	xcomp	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	sky	sky	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nummod	_	_
17	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	conj	_	_
19	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	golden	golden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	hair	hair	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
22	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
23	stars	star	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	conj	_	_
24	on	on	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	foreheads	forehead	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	nsubj:pass	_	_
27	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	aux:pass	_	_
28	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	advcl	_	_
29	to	to	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	Laptitza	Laptitza	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	28	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grow** | past · progressive | the stars |  |  | the sky and two little boys with golden hair and stars |  | pale *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in sky=Location |
| 2 | **bear** | past · passive |  | boys's foreheads | Laptitza |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |

<!-- .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 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/35/31/)
- next →: [sentence 33](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/35/33/)
- ↑ back to [The Boys With the Golden Stars](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/35/)