---
title: She approached the ditch, and took a blade of grass and tickled Big… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She approached the ditch, and took a blade of grass and tickled Big Lion’s nose, and his nostrils moved in spite of his efforts to keep them still. Who acts: last, nostrils. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/35/97/)

<!-- 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 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/35/) / 97

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35, sentence 97

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She approached the ditch, and took a blade of grass and tickled Big Lion’s nose, and his nostrils moved in spite of his efforts to keep them still.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** last, nostrils · **What happens:** approach, take, tickle, move, keep, spite · **To what, where:** ditch, blade, nose, spite, nostrils, efforts

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 35. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (last, nostrils), 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:pg5615:35:97
# text = She approached the ditch, and took a blade of grass and tickled Big Lion’s nose, and his nostrils moved in spite of his efforts to keep them still.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	approached	approach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	ditch	ditch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	blade	blade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	tickled	tickle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
14	Big	Big	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	Lion	Lion	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	17	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’s	's	PART	POS	_	15	case	_	_
17	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	21	nmod:poss	_	_
21	nostrils	nostril	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nsubj	_	_
22	moved	move	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	spite	spite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	efforts	effort	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	nmod	_	_
28	to	to	PART	TO	_	29	mark	_	_
29	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	advcl	_	_
30	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	obj	_	_
31	still	still	ADV	RB	_	29	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **approach** | past | last | the ditch |  |  |  |  | vn confront-98 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ditch=Theme |
| 2 | **take** | past |  | a blade of grass |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent blade=Theme |
| 3 | **tickle** | past |  | Big Lion's nose |  |  |  |  | vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nose=Experiencer |
| 4 | **move** | past | lion's nostrils |  |  | spite of lion's efforts |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme in spite=Trajectory |
| 5 | **keep** | to-infinitive | lion's nostrils *not said here* | nostrils *= nostril* |  |  | still |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 6 | **spite** |  |  | lion's efforts |  |  |  |  | nom spite «feeling transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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 96](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/35/96/)
- next →: [sentence 98](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/35/98/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/35/)