---
title: The sea was quite black and thick, and it was breaking high on the b… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The sea was quite black and thick, and it was breaking high on the beach; the foam was flying about, and the wind was blowing; everything looked bleak. Who acts: sea, foam, wind, everything. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife, with its depend
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife, sentence 121

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The sea was quite black and thick, and it was breaking high on the beach; the foam was flying about, and the wind was blowing; everything looked bleak.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sea, foam, wind, everything · **What happens:** be, break, fly, blow, look · **To what, where:** beach, bleak

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sea, foam, wind, everything), 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:pg7277:54:121
# text = The sea was quite black and thick, and it was breaking high on the beach; the foam was flying about, and the wind was blowing; everything looked bleak.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	quite	quite	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	breaking	break	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
13	high	high	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	12	advmod	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	beach	beach	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	foam	foam	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	flying	fly	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	_
22	about	about	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nsubj	_	_
27	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	28	aux	_	_
28	blowing	blow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	21	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
30	everything	everything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	31	nsubj	_	_
31	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
32	bleak	bleak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	31	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the sea |  |  |  |  | black *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** |  | the sea *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **break** | past · progressive | sea |  |  | the beach |  | high *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on beach=Location |
| 4 | **fly** | past · progressive | the foam |  |  |  |  | about *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **blow** | past · progressive | the wind |  |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V apart»: agent=Patient |
| 6 | **look** | past | everything | bleak |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme bleak=Attribute |

<!-- .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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