---
title: But the empress felt as if she was lying on thorns and nettles, and… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the empress felt as if she was lying on thorns and nettles, and could not close her eyes. Who acts: empress, cunning. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Boys With the Golden Stars, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/35/56/)

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Boys With the Golden Stars, sentence 56

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But the empress felt as if she was lying on thorns and nettles, and could not close her eyes.

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**Who acts:** empress, cunning · **What happens:** feel, lie, not close · **To what, where:** thorns, eyes

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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 (empress, cunning), 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:pg641:35:56
# text = But the empress felt as if she was lying on thorns and nettles, and could not close her eyes.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	empress	empress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	4	advcl	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	thorns	thorn	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	nettles	nettle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	close	close	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
19	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **feel** | past | the empress |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **lie** | past · progressive | cunning |  |  | thorns and nettles |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on thorn=Location |
| 3 | **not** **close** | could | the empress *not said here* | cunning's eyes |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent eye=Patient |

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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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