---
title: What was his amazement at seeing a girl of surpassing loveliness lyi… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: What was his amazement at seeing a girl of surpassing loveliness lying in it! Who acts: amazement, girl, loveliness. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crystal Coffin, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Crystal Coffin, sentence 39

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What was his amazement at seeing a girl of surpassing loveliness lying in it!

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**Who acts:** amazement, girl, loveliness · **What happens:** be, see, surpass, lie · **To what, where:** amazement, girl, loveliness

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crystal Coffin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (amazement, girl, loveliness), 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:pg7277:45:39
# text = What was his amazement at seeing a girl of surpassing loveliness lying in it!
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	amazement	amazement	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	at	at	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
6	seeing	see	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	acl	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
10	surpassing	surpass	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
11	loveliness	loveliness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
12	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	acl	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | floor's amazement |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | gerund | floor's amazement *not said here* | a girl |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer girl=Stimulus |
| 3 | **surpass** | gerund | a girl *not said here* | loveliness |  |  |  |  | vn exceed-90 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot loveliness=Theme |
| 4 | **lie** | gerund | loveliness *not said here* |  |  | loveliness |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in it=Location |

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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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