---
title: He took hold of a thick oak tree and rooted it up as easily as if it… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He took hold of a thick oak tree and rooted it up as easily as if it had been a weed. Who acts: heart, hold. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 14, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 14, sentence 93

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He took hold of a thick oak tree and rooted it up as easily as if it had been a weed.

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**Who acts:** heart, hold · **What happens:** take, root up, be, hold · **To what, where:** hold, thick oak tree

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (heart, hold), 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:pg2435:14:93
# text = He took hold of a thick oak tree and rooted it up as easily as if it had been a weed.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	hold	hold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	oak	oak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	rooted	root	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	up	up	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
13	as	as	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	easily	easily	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
15	as	as	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	21	case	_	_
16	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	15	fixed	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
18	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
19	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	21	cop	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	weed	weed	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | heart | hold of a thick oak tree |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hold=Theme |
| 2 | **root up** | past | heart *not said here* | hold |  |  |  | easily *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | past · perfect | hold |  |  |  |  | as a weed | tree rules |
| 4 | **hold** |  |  | a thick oak tree |  |  |  |  | nom hold «act transitive»: of=patient |

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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 Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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