---
title: At first there was a slight track, difficult, but not impossible to… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At first there was a slight track, difficult, but not impossible to follow; but this was soon lost, and the Pole Star was their only guide. Who acts: Pole Star. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Heart of Ice, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, Heart of Ice, part 4, sentence 27

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At first there was a slight track, difficult, but not impossible to follow; but this was soon lost, and the Pole Star was their only guide.

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**Who acts:** Pole Star · **What happens:** be, not be, follow, lose · **To what, where:** this, only guide

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Heart of Ice, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Pole Star), 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:pg7277:17:27
# text = At first there was a slight track, difficult, but not impossible to follow; but this was soon lost, and the Pole Star was their only guide.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	4	obl	_	_
3	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	4	expl	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	slight	slight	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	track	track	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	difficult	difficult	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	impossible	impossible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	follow	follow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
17	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
18	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux:pass	_	_
20	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	21	advmod	_	_
21	lost	lose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	Pole	Pole	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	26	compound	_	_
26	Star	Star	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	30	nsubj	_	_
27	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	30	cop	_	_
28	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	30	nmod:poss	_	_
29	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
30	guide	guide	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past |  |  |  |  |  | difficult *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **be** |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **follow** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **lose** | past · passive |  | this |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |
| 5 | **is a** | past | the Pole Star | spaniels's only guide |  |  |  |  | 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.

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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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