---
title: ‘Your neck is as thin as a cabbage-stalk, and it might easily break… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Your neck is as thin as a cabbage-stalk, and it might easily break and your head fall into the basket, and then who would buy anything?’ Who acts: neck, head. 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
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 1, sentence 36

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‘Your neck is as thin as a cabbage-stalk, and it might easily break and your head fall into the basket, and then who would buy anything?’

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**Who acts:** neck, head · **What happens:** be, break, fall, buy · **To what, where:** basket, anything

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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 (neck, head), 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:pg641:26:36
# text = ‘Your neck is as thin as a cabbage-stalk, and it might easily break and your head fall into the basket, and then who would buy anything?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	as	as	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	thin	thin	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	as	as	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
9	cabbage	cabbage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	stalk	stalk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
16	easily	easily	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	break	break	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	parataxis	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
19	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
21	fall	fall	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	conj	_	_
22	into	into	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	basket	basket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	30	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
27	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	30	advmod	_	_
28	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	30	nsubj	_	_
29	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	30	aux	_	_
30	buy	buy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	conj	_	_
31	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	30	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Your neck |  |  |  |  | as a cabbage stalk; thin *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **break** | might | neck |  |  |  |  | easily *property* | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **fall** | present | your head |  |  |  |  | into the basket *result* | vn become-109.1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient into basket=Result |
| 4 | **buy** | would |  | anything |  |  | then |  | vn accept-77.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Theme |

<!-- .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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