---
title: But the sun and moon were millions of miles away, and the problem wa… — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: But the sun and moon were millions of miles away, and the problem was how to reach them. Who acts: sun, problem. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 20, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 20, sentence 36

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But the sun and moon were millions of miles away, and the problem was how to reach them.

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**Who acts:** sun, problem · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 20. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sun, problem), 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:pg65965:20:36
# text = But the sun and moon were millions of miles away, and the problem was how to reach them.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	moon	moon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
6	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	millions	million	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	miles	mile	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	_
10	away	away	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	problem	problem	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
16	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | the sun and moon |  |  |  |  | millions of miles *nsubj*; away *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past | the problem |  |  |  |  | millions *= million* *obj*; reach *property* | tree rules |

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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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