---
title: The tortoise picked up the end of the bone in his mouth and went bac… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The tortoise picked up the end of the bone in his mouth and went back to the elephant. Who acts: tortoise. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2, sentence 59

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The tortoise picked up the end of the bone in his mouth and went back to the elephant.

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**Who acts:** tortoise · **What happens:** pick up, go back · **To what, where:** end, mouth

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tortoise), 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:pg3282:35:59
# text = The tortoise picked up the end of the bone in his mouth and went back to the elephant.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	tortoise	tortoise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	picked	pick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	up	up	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	bone	bone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	mouth	mouth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
15	back	back	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	elephant	elephant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pick up** | past | the tortoise | the end of the bone |  | whale's mouth |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent end=Topic |
| 2 | **go back** | past | the tortoise *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to the elephant *result* | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to elephant=Result |

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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 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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