---
title: Hans began to take up a little and sift it in his hands, but he soon… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Hans began to take up a little and sift it in his hands, but he soon saw that this would never do. Who acts: Hans, this. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 12, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/12/83/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 12, sentence 83

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Hans began to take up a little and sift it in his hands, but he soon saw that this would never do.

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**Who acts:** Hans, this · **What happens:** begin, take up, sift, see, not do · **To what, where:** little, room, hands · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hans, this), 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:pg5615:12:83
# text = Hans began to take up a little and sift it in his hands, but he soon saw that this would never do.
1	Hans	Hans	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	up	up	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	sift	sift	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	18	advmod	_	_
18	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	23	nsubj	_	_
21	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
23	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | Hans |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **take up** | to-infinitive | Hans *not said here* | a little |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **sift** | infinitive | Hans *not said here* | room |  | Hans's hands |  |  | vn disassemble-23.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
| 4 | **see** | past | Hans |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 5 | **not** **do** | would | this |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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 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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