---
title: He wrung the chicken’s neck, plunged it into boiling water, carefull… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He wrung the chicken’s neck, plunged it into boiling water, carefully plucked out all the feathers, and rubbed the skin nice and smooth. Who acts: scent. 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
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 1, sentence 86

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He wrung the chicken’s neck, plunged it into boiling water, carefully plucked out all the feathers, and rubbed the skin nice and smooth.

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**Who acts:** scent · **What happens:** wring, plunge, boil, pluck out, rub · **To what, where:** neck, boiling water, feathers, skin

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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 (scent), 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:pg641:26:86
# text = He wrung the chicken’s neck, plunged it into boiling water, carefully plucked out all the feathers, and rubbed the skin nice and smooth.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	wrung	wring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	chicken	chicken	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’s	's	PART	POS	_	4	case	_	_
6	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	plunged	plunge	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	into	into	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	boiling	boil	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	amod	_	_
12	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	carefully	carefully	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	plucked	pluck	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	parataxis	_	_
16	out	out	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
17	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	19	det:predet	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	feathers	feather	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	rubbed	rub	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	nice	nice	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	xcomp	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	smooth	smooth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wring** | past | scent | the chicken's neck |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent neck=Patient |
| 2 | **plunge** | past | scent *not said here* | neck |  | boiling water |  |  | vn meander-47.7-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location it=Theme |
| 3 | **boil** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn cooking-45.3 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **pluck out** | participle |  | all feathers |  |  |  | carefully *property* | vn braid-41.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent feather=Patient |
| 5 | **rub** | past | scent *not said here* | the skin |  |  |  | nice *property* | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent skin=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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