---
title: He was never so happy as on a wet day, when the mud in the farmyard… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He was never so happy as on a wet day, when the mud in the farmyard got soft, and thick, and slab. Who acts: eldest, mud. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Little Pigs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Three Little Pigs, sentence 4

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He was never so happy as on a wet day, when the mud in the farmyard got soft, and thick, and slab.

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**Who acts:** eldest, mud · **What happens:** not be, get

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Little Pigs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eldest, mud), 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:pg7277:13:4
# text = He was never so happy as on a wet day, when the mud in the farmyard got soft, and thick, and slab.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	happy	happy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	as	as	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	wet	wet	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
12	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	18	advmod	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	mud	mud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	farmyard	farmyard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
18	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
19	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
25	slab	slab	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | eldest *= eld* |  |  |  | day | happy *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **get** | past | the mud in the farmyard |  |  |  |  | soft, thick *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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