---
title: But the story never says who had stolen them, nor what the coarse co… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the story never says who had stolen them, nor what the coarse comb had to do with it. Who acts: story, coarse comb. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 37, 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/pg3454/37/12/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 37, sentence 12

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But the story never says who had stolen them, nor what the coarse comb had to do with it.

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**Who acts:** story, coarse comb · **What happens:** not say, steal, have, do · **To what, where:** spells · **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 37. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (story, coarse comb), 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:pg3454:37:12
# text = But the story never says who had stolen them, nor what the coarse comb had to do with it.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
7	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	stolen	steal	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	ccomp	_	_
9	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	12	cc	_	_
12	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	obl	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	coarse	coarse	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	comb	comb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	with	with	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **say** *speech: assert* | present | the story |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **steal** | past · perfect |  | spells *= spell* |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location they=Theme |
| 3 | **have** | past | the coarse comb |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **do** | to-infinitive | the coarse comb *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with comb | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 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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