---
title: She thought it might contain something to amuse her, and looked eage… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She thought it might contain something to amuse her, and looked eagerly inside, but nothing was there save a handful of wool and two empty eggshells. Who acts: Dotterine, basket, nothing. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Child Who Came From an Egg, with its dependency tree a
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Child Who Came From an Egg, sentence 67

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She thought it might contain something to amuse her, and looked eagerly inside, but nothing was there save a handful of wool and two empty eggshells.

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**Who acts:** Dotterine, basket, nothing · **What happens:** think, contain, amuse, look, be · **To what, where:** something, Dotterine · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Child Who Came From an Egg. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dotterine, basket, nothing), 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:pg641:12:67
# text = She thought it might contain something to amuse her, and looked eagerly inside, but nothing was there save a handful of wool and two empty eggshells.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	contain	contain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
6	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	5	obj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	amuse	amuse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
9	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
13	eagerly	eagerly	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	inside	inside	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
17	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	20	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	20	advmod	_	_
20	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	handful	handful	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	wool	wool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
26	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	28	nummod	_	_
27	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	28	amod	_	_
28	eggshells	eggshell	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | Dotterine |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **contain** | might | basket | something |  |  |  |  | vn comprise-107.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot something=Theme |
| 3 | **amuse** | to-infinitive | basket *not said here* | Dotterine |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus she=Experiencer |
| 4 | **look** | past |  |  |  |  |  | eagerly, inside *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 5 | **is** | past | nothing |  |  | there |  | save *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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