---
title: He shook the rope that held the boat, and, strange to say, the rope… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He shook the rope that held the boat, and, strange to say, the rope became loose. Who acts: Lasse, rope. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 14, 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/pg3454/14/68/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 14, sentence 68

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He shook the rope that held the boat, and, strange to say, the rope became loose.

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**Who acts:** Lasse, rope · **What happens:** shake, hold, say, become · **To what, where:** rope, boat · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac 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 (Lasse, rope), 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:pg3454:14:68
# text = He shook the rope that held the boat, and, strange to say, the rope became loose.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	shook	shake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	rope	rope	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	6	nsubj	_	_
6	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	boat	boat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	rope	rope	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
18	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
19	loose	loose	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shake** | past | Lasse | the rope |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent rope=Patient |
| 2 | **hold** | past | the rope | the boat |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boat=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | Lasse *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **become** | past | the rope |  |  |  |  | loose *property* | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=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 Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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