---
title: The dragon picked up his stone with one hand, and squeezed it till i… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The dragon picked up his stone with one hand, and squeezed it till it fell into powder, but no buttermilk flowed from it. Who acts: dragon, stone, buttermilk. 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 69

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The dragon picked up his stone with one hand, and squeezed it till it fell into powder, but no buttermilk flowed from it.

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**Who acts:** dragon, stone, buttermilk · **What happens:** pick up, squeeze, fall, flow · **To what, where:** stone, powder

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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 (dragon, stone, buttermilk), 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:pg641:13:69
# text = The dragon picked up his stone with one hand, and squeezed it till it fell into powder, but no buttermilk flowed from it.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	picked	pick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	up	up	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
9	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	squeezed	squeeze	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
17	into	into	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	powder	powder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
21	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	22	det	_	_
22	buttermilk	buttermilk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
23	flowed	flow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
24	from	from	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pick up** | past | the dragon | Stan's stone |  |  |  | with one hand | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stone=Topic |
| 2 | **squeeze** | past | the dragon *not said here* | stone |  |  |  |  | vn push-12-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **fall** | past | stone |  |  |  |  | into powder *result* | vn become-109.1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient into powder=Result |
| 4 | **flow** | past | no buttermilk |  |  | stone |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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