---
title: But he only took an old knife out of his pocket and began to scratch… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But he only took an old knife out of his pocket and began to scratch up the earth near the brook. Who acts: Stan. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Stan Bolovan, sentence 127

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But he only took an old knife out of his pocket and began to scratch up the earth near the brook.

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**Who acts:** Stan · **What happens:** take, begin, scratch up · **To what, where:** old knife, pocket, earth, brook

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Stan), 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:pg641:13:127
# text = But he only took an old knife out of his pocket and began to scratch up the earth near the brook.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	out	out	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	pocket	pocket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	scratch	scratch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	up	up	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
19	near	near	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	brook	brook	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | Stan | a old knife |  | Stan's pocket |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent knife=Theme out pocket=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **begin** | past | Stan *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **scratch up** | to-infinitive | Stan *not said here* | the earth |  | the brook |  |  | vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent earth=Patient near brook=Location |

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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 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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