---
title: A little further on they came upon a man who was kneading iron as if… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: A little further on they came upon a man who was kneading iron as if it had been dough. Who acts: stones, man, iron. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 31, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/31/37/)

<!-- 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 Crimson Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/) / [The Crimson Fairy Book, part 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/31/) / 37

# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 31, sentence 37

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A little further on they came upon a man who was kneading iron as if it had been dough.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** stones, man, iron · **What happens:** come, knead, be · **To what, where:** iron

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 31. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stones, man, iron), 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:pg2435:31:37
# text = A little further on they came upon a man who was kneading iron as if it had been dough.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	obl	_	_
3	further	far	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	6	advmod	_	_
4	on	on	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	kneading	knead	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	acl:relcl	_	_
13	iron	iron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
14	as	as	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	19	case	_	_
15	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	fixed	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
17	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	19	cop	_	_
19	dough	dough	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | stones *= stone* |  |  |  |  | upon a man; far *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme upon man=Location |
| 2 | **knead** | past · progressive | a man | iron |  |  |  |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: agent=Agent iron=Material |
| 3 | **is** | past · perfect | iron |  |  |  |  | as dough | tree rules |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/31/36/)
- next →: [sentence 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/31/38/)
- ↑ back to [The Crimson Fairy Book, part 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg2435/31/)