---
title: Esben told her to take an iron nail and wrap a piece of skin round i… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Esben told her to take an iron nail and wrap a piece of skin round it: she could then give her mother this to bite at. Who acts: Esben. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 29, 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/pg5615/29/59/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 59

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Esben told her to take an iron nail and wrap a piece of skin round it: she could then give her mother this to bite at.

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**Who acts:** Esben · **What happens:** tell, take, wrap, give, bite · **To what, where:** daughter, iron nail, piece, this, mother · **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 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Esben), 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:pg5615:29:59
# text = Esben told her to take an iron nail and wrap a piece of skin round it: she could then give her mother this to bite at.
1	Esben	Esben	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	iron	iron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	nail	nail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	wrap	wrap	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
15	round	round	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
19	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	21	advmod	_	_
21	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
22	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
24	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	21	obj	_	_
25	to	to	PART	TO	_	26	mark	_	_
26	bite	bite	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	advcl	_	_
27	at	at	ADP	IN	_	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | Esben |  | daughter |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent she=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **take** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Esben *not said here* | a iron nail |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nail=Theme |
| 3 | **wrap** | present | Esben *not said here* | a piece of skin round skin |  |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent piece=Theme |
| 4 | **give** | could | Esben | this | daughter's mother |  | then |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent mother=Recipient this=Theme |
| 5 | **bite** | to-infinitive | Esben *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn swat-18.2 «NP V PP»: 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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