---
title: To be sure I’ve emptied a whole barrel of wine, but what is one drop… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: To be sure I’ve emptied a whole barrel of wine, but what is one drop on a hot stone?’ A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Goose, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Golden Goose, sentence 52

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To be sure I’ve emptied a whole barrel of wine, but what is one drop on a hot stone?’

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**What happens:** be, empty · **To what, where:** I, one drop, hot stone

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Goose. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg540:48:52
# text = To be sure I’ve emptied a whole barrel of wine, but what is one drop on a hot stone?’
1	To	to	PART	TO	_	3	mark	_	_
2	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	cop	_	_
3	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’ve	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	emptied	empty	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	ccomp	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	barrel	barrel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	wine	wine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	17	nsubj	_	_
15	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	_
17	drop	drop	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
18	on	on	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	hot	hot	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **empty** | present · passive |  | I |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** | present |  | one drop |  | a hot stone |  |  | 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 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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