---
title: Houses and trees were being blown down, the mountains were being sha… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Houses and trees were being blown down, the mountains were being shaken, and pieces of rock were rolling in the sea. Who acts: pieces. 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 198

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Houses and trees were being blown down, the mountains were being shaken, and pieces of rock were rolling in the sea.

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**Who acts:** pieces · **What happens:** blow down, shake, roll · **To what, where:** Houses, mountains, sea

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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 (pieces), 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:pg7277:54:198
# text = Houses and trees were being blown down, the mountains were being shaken, and pieces of rock were rolling in the sea.
1	Houses	house	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
3	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	conj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
5	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	blown	blow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
7	down	down	ADP	RP	_	6	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	mountains	mountain	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux:pass	_	_
12	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	aux:pass	_	_
13	shaken	shake	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
16	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nsubj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	rock	rock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	_
19	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	rolling	roll	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **blow down** | past · passive |  | Houses and trees |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **shake** | past · passive |  | the mountains |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: subject=Patient |
| 3 | **roll** | past · progressive | pieces of rock |  |  | the sea |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in sea=Trajectory |

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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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