---
title: In time he came to a narrow strait of the sea and across it lay a gr… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In time he came to a narrow strait of the sea and across it lay a great whale over whose back people walked and drove as if it had been a bridge or a road. Who acts: man, sea, people. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars, with its dependency tree
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/4/101/)

<!-- 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 Story of Three Wonderful Beggars](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/4/) / 101

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars, sentence 101

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
In time he came to a narrow strait of the sea and across it lay a great whale over whose back people walked and drove as if it had been a bridge or a road.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** man, sea, people · **What happens:** come, lie, walk, drive, be · **To what, where:** narrow strait, great whale

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, sea, people), 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:pg641:4:101
# text = In time he came to a narrow strait of the sea and across it lay a great whale over whose back people walked and drove as if it had been a bridge or a road.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	narrow	narrow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	strait	strait	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	across	across	ADP	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	lay	lie	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	whale	whale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
19	over	over	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	23	nmod:poss	_	_
21	back	back	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
22	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nsubj	_	_
23	walked	walk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	advcl	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	drove	drive	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	conj	_	_
26	as	as	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	32	case	_	_
27	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	26	fixed	_	_
28	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	32	nsubj	_	_
29	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	32	aux	_	_
30	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	32	cop	_	_
31	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	bridge	bridge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obl	_	_
33	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	35	cc	_	_
34	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | man |  |  | a narrow strait of the sea | time |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to strait=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **lie** | past | sea | a great whale |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location whale=Theme |
| 3 | **walk** | past | people |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **drive** | past | people *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **is** | past · perfect | sea |  |  |  |  | as a bridge or a road | tree rules |

<!-- .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 100](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/4/100/)
- next →: [sentence 102](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/4/102/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/4/)