---
title: Then the girl placed the mussel shell on the water and took the fish… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the girl placed the mussel shell on the water and took the fish scales in her hand. Who acts: girl. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 60

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then the girl placed the mussel shell on the water and took the fish scales in her hand.

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**Who acts:** girl · **What happens:** place, take · **To what, where:** mussel shell, water, fish scales, hand

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (girl), 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:pg641:2:60
# text = Then the girl placed the mussel shell on the water and took the fish scales in her hand.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	placed	place	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	mussel	mussel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	shell	shell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	fish	fish	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	scales	scale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **place** | past | the girl | the mussel shell |  | the water | then |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V PP.destination NP»: agent=Agent shell=Theme on water=Destination |
| 2 | **take** | past | the girl *not said here* | the fish scales |  | girl's hand |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent scale=Value in hand=Location |

<!-- .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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