---
title: ‘Croak, croak, croak!’ was all he could say when he saw the pretty l… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Croak, croak, croak!’ was all he could say when he saw the pretty little girl in the walnut-shell. Who acts: son. 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/pg640/47/87/)

<!-- 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/) / 87

# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Witch in the Stone Boat(31), sentence 87

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Croak, croak, croak!’ was all he could say when he saw the pretty little girl in the walnut-shell.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** son · **What happens:** say, see · **To what, where:** pretty little girl, walnut shell · **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 (son), 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:pg640:47:87
# text = ‘Croak, croak, croak!’ was all he could say when he saw the pretty little girl in the walnut-shell.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Croak	croak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	croak	croak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	croak	croak	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	0	root	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl:relcl	_	_
14	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
18	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
19	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
23	walnut	walnut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	shell	shell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | could | son |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **see** | past | son | the pretty little girl |  | the walnut shell |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer girl=Stimulus |

<!-- .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 86](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/86/)
- next →: [sentence 88](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/88/)
- ↑ back to [The Witch in the Stone Boat(31)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/47/)