---
title: ‘Pull a feather from my tail, and put it in the fire, and if you wan… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Pull a feather from my tail, and put it in the fire, and if you want me I will come to you, wherever I am.’ Who acts: you, I. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nunda, Eater of People, sentence 115

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‘Pull a feather from my tail, and put it in the fire, and if you want me I will come to you, wherever I am.’

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** pull, put, want, come · **To what, where:** feather, tail, fire, me, you

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I), 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:pg641:29:115
# text = ‘Pull a feather from my tail, and put it in the fire, and if you want me I will come to you, wherever I am.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Pull	pull	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	feather	feather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	from	from	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	put	put	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
17	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	want	want	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	advcl	_	_
20	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
24	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
27	wherever	wherever	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	29	advmod	_	_
28	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	29	nsubj	_	_
29	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pull** | imperative | you *not said here* | a feather |  | my tail |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent feather=Theme from tail=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **put** | infinitive | you *not said here* | feather |  | the fire |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme in fire=Destination |
| 3 | **want** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | you | me |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot i=Theme |
| 4 | **come** | future | I |  | you |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to you=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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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