---
title: She leant on a tall stick and limped and shuffled and stumbled along… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She leant on a tall stick and limped and shuffled and stumbled along as if she were going to fall on her nose at any moment. Who acts: woman. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 1, sentence 18

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She leant on a tall stick and limped and shuffled and stumbled along as if she were going to fall on her nose at any moment.

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**Who acts:** woman · **What happens:** limp, shuffle, stumble, go, fall · **To what, where:** nose

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman), 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:pg641:26:18
# text = She leant on a tall stick and limped and shuffled and stumbled along as if she were going to fall on her nose at any moment.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	compound	_	_
2	leant	leant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
3	on	on	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	tall	tall	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	limped	limp	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	conj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	shuffled	shuffle	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	stumbled	stumble	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	conj	_	_
13	along	along	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
15	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
17	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
21	on	on	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
24	at	at	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	26	det	_	_
26	moment	moment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **limp** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **shuffle** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **stumble** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | along *property* | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **go** | past · progressive | woman |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 5 | **fall** | to-infinitive | woman *not said here* |  |  | woman's nose | moment |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on nose=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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