---
title: Just as she was pulling the knot tight there was a crack, and the th… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Just as she was pulling the knot tight there was a crack, and the thread broke, for it was rotten. Who acts: witch, thread. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Pig, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Enchanted Pig, sentence 108

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Just as she was pulling the knot tight there was a crack, and the thread broke, for it was rotten.

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**Who acts:** witch, thread · **What happens:** pull, be · **To what, where:** knot

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Pig. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (witch, thread), 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:pg540:12:108
# text = Just as she was pulling the knot tight there was a crack, and the thread broke, for it was rotten.
1	Just	just	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	pulling	pull	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	csubj	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	knot	knot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	tight	tight	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
9	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	10	expl	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	crack	crack	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	thread	thread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
22	rotten	rotten	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pull** | past · progressive | witch | the knot |  |  |  | tight *property* | vn push-12-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent knot=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past | the thread |  |  |  |  | break *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** | past | thread |  |  |  |  | rotten *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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