---
title: How they spluttered and flamed, to be sure! — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: How they spluttered and flamed, to be sure! Who acts: matches. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 5, 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/pg5615/5/30/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 5, sentence 30

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How they spluttered and flamed, to be sure!

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**Who acts:** matches · **What happens:** splutter, flame, be

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (matches), 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:pg5615:5:30
# text = How they spluttered and flamed, to be sure!
1	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	spluttered	splutter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	flamed	flame	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
8	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
9	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **splutter** | past | matches *= match* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **flame** | past | matches *= match* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | to-infinitive | matches *= match* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |

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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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