---
title: And in his more serious moments what could be pleasanter than to tal… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And in his more serious moments what could be pleasanter than to talk to Grave upon some shady lawn, while he held the hand of Loving in his own, and all the others lingered near in sympathetic silence? Who acts: Prince. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Watch, with 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/8/134/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The Enchanted Watch](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/8/) / 134

# The Green Fairy Book, The Enchanted Watch, sentence 134

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And in his more serious moments what could be pleasanter than to talk to Grave upon some shady lawn, while he held the hand of Loving in his own, and all the others lingered near in sympathetic silence?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Prince · **What happens:** be, talk, grave, hold, linger · **To what, where:** hand, own, others, sympathetic silence

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Watch. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince), 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:pg7277:8:134
# text = And in his more serious moments what could be pleasanter than to talk to Grave upon some shady lawn, while he held the hand of Loving in his own, and all the others lingered near in sympathetic silence?
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
2	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
4	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	5	advmod	_	_
5	serious	serious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	moments	moment	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
7	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	10	obl	_	_
8	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	cop	_	_
10	pleasanter	pleasant	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
11	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	talk	talk	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	csubj	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	Grave	grave	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	conj	_	_
16	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	19	det	_	_
18	shady	shady	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	lawn	lawn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
22	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	Loving	Loving	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	_
28	in	in	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	30	nmod:poss	_	_
30	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	35	punct	_	_
32	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	35	cc	_	_
33	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	35	det:predet	_	_
34	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	others	other	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obl	_	_
36	lingered	linger	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	35	acl	_	_
37	near	near	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
38	in	in	ADP	IN	_	40	case	_	_
39	sympathetic	sympathetic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	40	amod	_	_
40	silence	silence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
41	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | could |  |  |  |  | moment | pleasant *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **talk** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **grave** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | upon some shady lawn | tree rules |
| 4 | **hold** | past | Prince | the hand of Loving |  | Prince's own |  | all others *obl* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent hand=Theme in own=Location |
| 5 | **linger** | participle |  | all others *not said here* |  | sympathetic silence |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme near silence=Location |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 133](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/8/133/)
- next →: [sentence 135](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/8/135/)
- ↑ back to [The Enchanted Watch](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/8/)