---
title: The prince took several small pieces, tasted and examined carefully,… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The prince took several small pieces, tasted and examined carefully, and then said with a mysterious and sarcastic smile: Who acts: prince. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 3, 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 3, sentence 67

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The prince took several small pieces, tasted and examined carefully, and then said with a mysterious and sarcastic smile:

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**Who acts:** prince · **What happens:** take, taste, examine, say · **To what, where:** several small pieces · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The History of Dwarf Long Nose, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince), 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:pg641:28:67
# text = The prince took several small pieces, tasted and examined carefully, and then said with a mysterious and sarcastic smile:
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	prince	prince	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	several	several	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
5	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	pieces	piece	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	tasted	taste	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	examined	examine	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	_
11	carefully	carefully	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	15	advmod	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
18	mysterious	mysterious	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	sarcastic	sarcastic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	conj	_	_
21	smile	smile	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | the prince | several small pieces |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent piece=Theme |
| 2 | **taste** | participle |  | several small pieces *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **examine** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | carefully *property* | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the prince *not said here* |  |  |  | then | with a mysterious smile | vn pronounce-29.3.1 «NP V NP PP.manner»: agent=Agent with smile=Manner |

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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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