---
title: The prince could not take away the wood as quickly as the dove could… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The prince could not take away the wood as quickly as the dove could split it, and in a short time it was all cleft into little sticks. Who acts: prince, dove. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 26, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/26/22/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Pink Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/) / [The Pink Fairy Book, part 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/26/) / 22

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 26, sentence 22

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The prince could not take away the wood as quickly as the dove could split it, and in a short time it was all cleft into little sticks.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** prince, dove · **What happens:** not take away, split, be · **To what, where:** wood, little sticks, cleft

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 26. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince, dove), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg5615:26:22
# text = The prince could not take away the wood as quickly as the dove could split it, and in a short time it was all cleft into little sticks.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	away	away	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	as	as	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
11	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	dove	dove	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
14	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	split	split	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
24	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	cop	_	_
25	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	26	det	_	_
26	cleft	cleft	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
27	into	into	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
28	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **take away** | could | the prince | the wood |  |  |  | quickly *property* | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wood=Theme |
| 2 | **split** | could | the dove | wood |  |  |  | into little sticks *result* | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP PP.result»: agent=Agent it=Patient into stick=Result |
| 3 | **is a** | past | dove | all cleft |  |  | time |  | 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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/26/21/)
- next →: [sentence 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/26/23/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/26/)