---
title: But the Tin-soldier was silent, and grasped his gun more firmly. — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the Tin-soldier was silent, and grasped his gun more firmly. Who acts: Tin soldier. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, sentence 48

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But the Tin-soldier was silent, and grasped his gun more firmly.

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**Who acts:** Tin soldier · **What happens:** be, grasp · **To what, where:** gun

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Tin soldier), 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:pg640:50:48
# text = But the Tin-soldier was silent, and grasped his gun more firmly.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	Tin	Tin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	soldier	soldier	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
7	silent	silent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	grasped	grasp	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	gun	gun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	14	advmod	_	_
14	firmly	firmly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the Tin soldier |  |  |  |  | silent *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **grasp** | past |  | rat's gun |  |  |  | firmly *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer gun=Stimulus |

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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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