---
title: But Pinkel has a smooth tongue, and he can get the better of any wom… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But Pinkel has a smooth tongue, and he can get the better of any woman, old or young.' Who acts: Pinkel. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 16, sentence 69

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But Pinkel has a smooth tongue, and he can get the better of any woman, old or young.'

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**Who acts:** Pinkel · **What happens:** have, get · **To what, where:** smooth tongue

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Pinkel), 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:pg3027:16:69
# text = But Pinkel has a smooth tongue, and he can get the better of any woman, old or young.'
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	Pinkel	Pinkel	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	smooth	smooth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	11	xcomp	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	16	det	_	_
16	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
18	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	advcl	_	_
19	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | present | Pinkel | a smooth tongue |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tongue=Patient |
| 2 | **get** | can | Pinkel |  |  |  |  | good *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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