---
title: Rolling stones gather no moss, but they sometimes gain polish; and t… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Rolling stones gather no moss, but they sometimes gain polish; and the months which John had spent in roaming about the world had not been wasted. Who acts: Rolling stones, crowns. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/22/277/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The Little Soldier](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/22/) / 277

# The Green Fairy Book, The Little Soldier, sentence 277

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Rolling stones gather no moss, but they sometimes gain polish; and the months which John had spent in roaming about the world had not been wasted.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Rolling stones, crowns · **What happens:** roll, gather, gain, spend, roam, not waste · **To what, where:** moss, polish, months

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Rolling stones, crowns), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg7277:22:277
# text = Rolling stones gather no moss, but they sometimes gain polish; and the months which John had spent in roaming about the world had not been wasted.
1	Rolling	roll	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	amod	_	_
2	stones	stone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	gather	gather	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	5	det	_	_
5	moss	moss	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	10	advmod	_	_
10	gain	gain	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
11	polish	polish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	months	month	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
16	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
17	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
18	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	spent	spend	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
20	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
21	roaming	roam	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	19	advcl	_	_
22	about	about	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
25	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
26	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	28	advmod	_	_
27	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	28	aux:pass	_	_
28	wasted	waste	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	21	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **roll** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **gather** | present | Rolling stones | no moss |  |  |  |  | vn deduce-97.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent moss=Theme |
| 3 | **gain** | present | crowns *= crown* | polish |  |  |  | sometimes *property* | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent polish=Theme |
| 4 | **spend** | past · perfect · passive |  | the months |  |  |  |  | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Asset |
| 5 | **roam** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | about the world | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme about world=Trajectory |
| 6 | **not** **waste** | past · perfect · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP» |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 276](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/22/276/)
- next →: [sentence 278](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/22/278/)
- ↑ back to [The Little Soldier](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/22/)