---
title: So she dipped her tail first in the oil and then in the pepper, and… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So she dipped her tail first in the oil and then in the pepper, and held it to the sorcerer’s nose. Who acts: last. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Bronze Ring, sentence 199

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So she dipped her tail first in the oil and then in the pepper, and held it to the sorcerer’s nose.

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**Who acts:** last · **What happens:** dip, hold · **To what, where:** tail, oil

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (last), 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:pg503:2:199
# text = So she dipped her tail first in the oil and then in the pepper, and held it to the sorcerer’s nose.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	dipped	dip	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	3	advmod	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	oil	oil	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	14	advmod	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	pepper	pepper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	sorcerer	sorcerer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’s	's	PART	POS	_	21	case	_	_
23	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dip** | past | last | last's tail |  | the oil and the pepper |  | first *property* | vn funnel-9.3 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent tail=Theme in oil=Trajectory |
| 2 | **hold** | past | last *not said here* | tail |  |  |  | to the sorcerer's nose | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |

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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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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