---
title: The water flowed noiselessly over the pebbles, the wind bowed the to… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The water flowed noiselessly over the pebbles, the wind bowed the tops of the trees, flies and chafers darted about, without breaking the silence. Who acts: water, wind, tops. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmati
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/9/67/)

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 1, sentence 67

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The water flowed noiselessly over the pebbles, the wind bowed the tops of the trees, flies and chafers darted about, without breaking the silence.

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**Who acts:** water, wind, tops · **What happens:** flow, bow, dart about, break · **To what, where:** pebbles, silence

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (water, wind, tops), 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:pg641:9:67
# text = The water flowed noiselessly over the pebbles, the wind bowed the tops of the trees, flies and chafers darted about, without breaking the silence.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	flowed	flow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	noiselessly	noiselessly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	over	over	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	pebbles	pebble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
11	bowed	bow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	tops	top	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	nsubj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
18	flies	fly	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	conj	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	chafers	chafer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	conj	_	_
21	darted	dart	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	ccomp	_	_
22	about	about	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	25	mark	_	_
25	breaking	break	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	21	advcl	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	silence	silence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **flow** | past | the water |  |  | the pebbles |  | noiselessly *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme over pebble=Location |
| 2 | **bow** | past | the wind |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **dart about** | past | the tops of the trees and flies and chafers |  |  |  |  | about *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **break** | gerund | the tops of the trees and flies and chafers *not said here* | the silence |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer silence=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.

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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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