---
title: On the kitchen table there was a large square lump of yellow butter. — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: On the kitchen table there was a large square lump of yellow butter. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Antonio Canova., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Antonio Canova., sentence 43

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On the kitchen table there was a large square lump of yellow butter.

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**What happens:** be · **To what, where:** large square lump, kitchen table

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This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Antonio Canova.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg18442:54:43
# text = On the kitchen table there was a large square lump of yellow butter.
1	On	on	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	kitchen	kitchen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	table	table	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
5	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	6	expl	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
8	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
9	square	square	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	lump	lump	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	yellow	yellow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	butter	butter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | a large square lump |  | the kitchen table |  | of yellow butter | tree rules |

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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:** «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 18442 (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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- ← previous: [sentence 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/42/)
- next →: [sentence 44](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/44/)
- ↑ back to [Antonio Canova.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/)