---
title: To learn to rub up cocoa nuts, and to polish glass floors, and to be… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: To learn to rub up cocoa nuts, and to polish glass floors, and to be taught cooking by guinea pigs! A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 2, 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 2, sentence 29

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To learn to rub up cocoa nuts, and to polish glass floors, and to be taught cooking by guinea pigs!

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**What happens:** learn, rub up, polish, teach, cook · **To what, where:** cocoa nuts, glass floors

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg641:27:29
# text = To learn to rub up cocoa nuts, and to polish glass floors, and to be taught cooking by guinea pigs!
1	To	to	PART	TO	_	2	mark	_	_
2	learn	learn	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	rub	rub	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	up	up	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	cocoa	cocoa	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	nuts	nut	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	polish	polish	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	glass	glass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	floors	floor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	aux:pass	_	_
18	taught	teach	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	conj	_	_
19	cooking	cook	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	xcomp	_	_
20	by	by	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	guinea	guinea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	pigs	pig	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **learn** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **rub up** | to-infinitive |  | cocoa nuts |  |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent nut=Theme |
| 3 | **polish** | to-infinitive |  | glass floors |  |  |  |  | vn butter-9.9 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent floor=Destination |
| 4 | **teach** *speech: other* | to-infinitive · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: clause=Topic |
| 5 | **cook** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | by guinea pigs | vn cooking-45.3 «NP.patient V»: agent=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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