---
title: ‘Can you get buttermilk out of your stone?’ asked Stan. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Can you get buttermilk out of your stone?’ asked Stan. Who acts: you. 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 68

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‘Can you get buttermilk out of your stone?’ asked Stan.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** get, ask · **To what, where:** buttermilk, stone, Stan · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (you), 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:pg641:13:68
# text = ‘Can you get buttermilk out of your stone?’ asked Stan.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
5	buttermilk	buttermilk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
6	out	out	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
12	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	Stan	Stan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | can | you | buttermilk |  | your stone |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer buttermilk=Stimulus |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  | Stan |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent stan=Recipient clause=Topic |

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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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