---
title: But flying was not an easy matter, for the two storks had had but li… — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: But flying was not an easy matter, for the two storks had had but little practice as yet. Who acts: two storks. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 10, sentence 21

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But flying was not an easy matter, for the two storks had had but little practice as yet.

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**Who acts:** two storks · **What happens:** fly, not be, have · **To what, where:** flying easy matter

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (two storks), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:10:21
# text = But flying was not an easy matter, for the two storks had had but little practice as yet.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	amod	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	easy	easy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	matter	matter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	storks	stork	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	had	have	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	conj	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	practice	practice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	_
18	as	as	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	yet	yet	ADV	RB	_	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **is a** | past |  | a flying easy matter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | past · perfect | the two storks |  |  |  |  | little practice *conj* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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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 Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (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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