---
title: It was a leaf torn out of an old book--a book of poetry — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a leaf torn out of an old book--a book of poetry Who acts: cheese, leaf. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 2, 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/pg5615/2/37/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 2, sentence 37

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It was a leaf torn out of an old book--a book of poetry

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**Who acts:** cheese, leaf · **What happens:** be, tear out · **To what, where:** leaf, old book

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cheese, leaf), 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:pg5615:2:37
# text = It was a leaf torn out of an old book--a book of poetry
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	leaf	leaf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	torn	tear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl	_	_
6	out	out	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	book	book	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	book	book	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	appos	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	poetry	poetry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | cheese | a leaf |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tear out** | participle | a leaf *not said here* | a old book |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location book=Theme |

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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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