---
title: But one day the looking-glass was dropped, and it broke into a milli… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But one day the looking-glass was dropped, and it broke into a million-billion and more pieces. Who acts: glass. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 8, sentence 41

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But one day the looking-glass was dropped, and it broke into a million-billion and more pieces.

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**Who acts:** glass · **What happens:** look, drop, break · **To what, where:** looking glass, billion

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (glass), 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:pg5615:8:41
# text = But one day the looking-glass was dropped, and it broke into a million-billion and more pieces.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
2	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	glass	glass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	dropped	drop	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
14	into	into	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	million	million	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	billion	billion	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	obl	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	21	amod	_	_
21	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **drop** | past · passive |  | the looking glass |  |  | day |  | vn put\_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 3 | **break** | past | glass |  |  |  |  | into billion *result* | vn break-45.1 «NP V PP.result»: agent=Patient into billion=Result |

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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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