---
title: Instantly his ring pricked him sharply, as if it had been a pin. — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Instantly his ring pricked him sharply, as if it had been a pin. Who acts: ring. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Darling, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Prince Darling, sentence 37

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Instantly his ring pricked him sharply, as if it had been a pin.

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**Who acts:** ring · **What happens:** prick, be · **To what, where:** Darling, pin

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Darling. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ring), 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:pg503:39:37
# text = Instantly his ring pricked him sharply, as if it had been a pin.
1	Instantly	instantly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	ring	ring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	pricked	prick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	sharply	sharply	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
8	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
9	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
11	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	14	cop	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	pin	pin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **prick** | past | Darling's ring | Darling |  |  |  | instantly, sharply *property* | vn hurt-40.8.3-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Patient |
| 2 | **is a** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | ring | a pin |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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