---
title: Suddenly he stepped on such a soft spot that his foot sank in the ea… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Suddenly he stepped on such a soft spot that his foot sank in the earth. Who acts: back, foot. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How a Fish Swam in the Air and a Hare in the Water., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, How a Fish Swam in the Air and a Hare in the Water., sentence 6

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Suddenly he stepped on such a soft spot that his foot sank in the earth.

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**Who acts:** back, foot · **What happens:** step, sink · **To what, where:** soft spot, earth

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, How a Fish Swam in the Air and a Hare in the Water.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (back, foot), 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:pg641:16:6
# text = Suddenly he stepped on such a soft spot that his foot sank in the earth.
1	Suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	stepped	step	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
5	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	8	det:predet	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	soft	soft	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	spot	spot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
9	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	12	obj	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	foot	foot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	sank	sink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **step** | past | back |  |  | such soft spot |  | suddenly *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on spot=Trajectory |
| 2 | **sink** | past | back's foot | such soft spot |  | the earth |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent that=Patient |

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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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