---
title: He was pulling about some sharp, flat pieces of ice, and trying to f… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He was pulling about some sharp, flat pieces of ice, and trying to fit one into the other. Who acts: Kay. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 10, sentence 104

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He was pulling about some sharp, flat pieces of ice, and trying to fit one into the other.

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**Who acts:** Kay · **What happens:** pull, try, fit · **To what, where:** one, other

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Kay), 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:pg5615:10:104
# text = He was pulling about some sharp, flat pieces of ice, and trying to fit one into the other.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	pulling	pull	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	about	about	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
5	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	9	det	_	_
6	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	flat	flat	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	ice	ice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	trying	try	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	conj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	fit	fit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	obj	_	_
18	into	into	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pull** | past · progressive | Kay |  |  |  |  | about some sharp flat pieces of ice | vn slide-11.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **try** | gerund | Kay *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **fit** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Kay *not said here* | one |  | the other |  |  | vn funnel-9.3-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent one=Theme into other=Destination |

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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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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