---
title: The cable was about as thick as packthread, and the bars of the leng… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The cable was about as thick as packthread, and the bars of the length and size of a knitting-needle. Who acts: cable. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Chapter IV, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Chapter IV, sentence 6

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The cable was about as thick as packthread, and the bars of the length and size of a knitting-needle.

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**Who acts:** cable · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Chapter IV. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cable), 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:pg503:46:6
# text = The cable was about as thick as packthread, and the bars of the length and size of a knitting-needle.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	cable	cable	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	about	about	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	as	as	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	as	as	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	packthread	packthread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	bars	bar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	size	size	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
20	knitting	knitting	NOUN	NN	_	22	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	needle	needle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the cable |  |  |  |  | as packthread; about, thick *property* | 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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