---
title: ‘Put a stone in, for I am afraid I may not reach the bottom,’ said B… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Put a stone in, for I am afraid I may not reach the bottom,’ said Big Klaus. Who acts: I, Big Klaus. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus, sentence 266

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‘Put a stone in, for I am afraid I may not reach the bottom,’ said Big Klaus.

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**Who acts:** I, Big Klaus · **What happens:** put, be, not reach, say · **To what, where:** stone, bottom · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Big Klaus and Little Klaus. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, Big Klaus), 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:pg640:41:266
# text = ‘Put a stone in, for I am afraid I may not reach the bottom,’ said Big Klaus.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	ccomp	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	in	in	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	advcl	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	reach	reach	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	bottom	bottom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
19	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
20	Big	Big	ADJ	NNP	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	Klaus	Klaus	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **put** | infinitive |  | a stone |  |  |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent stone=Goal |
| 2 | **is** | present | I |  |  |  |  | afraid *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **reach** | may | I | the bottom |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent bottom=Theme |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Big Klaus |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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 Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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