---
title: She was scarcely half a thumb in height; so they called her Thumbeli… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She was scarcely half a thumb in height; so they called her Thumbelina. Who acts: flower, petals. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/77/)

<!-- 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 Yellow Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/) / [The Witch in the Stone Boat(31)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/) / 77

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), sentence 77

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She was scarcely half a thumb in height; so they called her Thumbelina.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** flower, petals · **What happens:** be, call · **To what, where:** thumb, height · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (flower, petals), 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:pg640:47:77
# text = She was scarcely half a thumb in height; so they called her Thumbelina.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	half	half	DET	PDT	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac|PronType=Ind	6	det:predet	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	thumb	thumb	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	height	height	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	so	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	called	call	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
13	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	Thumbelina	Thumbelina	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | flower | half thumb |  | height |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **call** | past | petals *= petal* | half thumb *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent thumb=Recipient |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 76](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/76/)
- next →: [sentence 78](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/78/)
- ↑ back to [The Witch in the Stone Boat(31)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/)