---
title: The sun was just setting, and its last rays lit up a large city they… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The sun was just setting, and its last rays lit up a large city they were approaching. Who acts: sun, last rays, rays. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 3, sentence 61

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The sun was just setting, and its last rays lit up a large city they were approaching.

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**Who acts:** sun, last rays, rays · **What happens:** set, lit up, approach, ray · **To what, where:** large city

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sun, last rays, rays), 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:pg7277:28:61
# text = The sun was just setting, and its last rays lit up a large city they were approaching.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	sun	sun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	just	just	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	setting	set	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	rays	ray	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
11	lit	lit	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
12	up	up	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
16	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	approaching	approach	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	15	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **set** | past · progressive | the sun |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **lit up** | participle | sun's last rays | a large city |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **approach** | past · progressive | rays *= ray* | a large city *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn confront-98 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent city=Theme |
| 4 | **ray** |  | sun |  |  |  |  |  | nom ray «phenomenon transitive»: poss=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 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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