---
title: But the storm was raging so fiercely that he could scarcely stand. — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the storm was raging so fiercely that he could scarcely stand. Who acts: storm. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife, sentence 197

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But the storm was raging so fiercely that he could scarcely stand.

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**Who acts:** storm · **What happens:** rage, stand

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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 (storm), 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:pg7277:54:197
# text = But the storm was raging so fiercely that he could scarcely stand.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	storm	storm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	raging	rage	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	fiercely	fiercely	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
8	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	stand	stand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **rage** | past · progressive | the storm |  |  |  |  | fiercely *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **stand** | could | storm |  |  |  |  | scarcely *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=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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