---
title: So the wolverine sat down on a heap of dry ferns, and picking up the… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So the wolverine sat down on a heap of dry ferns, and picking up the apple, he finished it without even asking the mouse’s leave. Who acts: wolverine. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/16/112/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 16, sentence 112

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So the wolverine sat down on a heap of dry ferns, and picking up the apple, he finished it without even asking the mouse’s leave.

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**Who acts:** wolverine · **What happens:** sit down, pick up, finish, ask · **To what, where:** heap, apple, leave

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, 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 (wolverine), 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:pg3282:16:112
# text = So the wolverine sat down on a heap of dry ferns, and picking up the apple, he finished it without even asking the mouse’s leave.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	wolverine	wolverine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	down	down	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	heap	heap	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	dry	dry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	ferns	fern	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
14	picking	pick	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	20	advcl	_	_
15	up	up	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	apple	apple	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	finished	finish	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	_
22	without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
23	even	even	ADV	RB	_	24	advmod	_	_
24	asking	ask	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	20	advcl	_	_
25	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
26	mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	28	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	’s	's	PART	POS	_	26	case	_	_
28	leave	leave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit down** | past | the wolverine |  |  | a heap of dry ferns |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on heap=Location |
| 2 | **pick up** | gerund | Wolverine *not said here* | the apple |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent apple=Topic |
| 3 | **finish** | past | Wolverine | apple |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector it=Eventuality |
| 4 | **ask** *speech: ask* | gerund | Wolverine *not said here* | the mouse's leave |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent leave=Recipient |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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