---
title: And his ears were stopped, and his legs trembled, and his tongue gre… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And his ears were stopped, and his legs trembled, and his tongue grew heavy at the thought of the sultan. Who acts: legs, tongue. 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 53

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And his ears were stopped, and his legs trembled, and his tongue grew heavy at the thought of the sultan.

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**Who acts:** legs, tongue · **What happens:** stop, tremble, grow, think · **To what, where:** ears, thought, sultan

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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 (legs, tongue), 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:pg641:29:53
# text = And his ears were stopped, and his legs trembled, and his tongue grew heavy at the thought of the sultan.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	stopped	stop	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	legs	leg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
10	trembled	tremble	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	tongue	tongue	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
16	heavy	heavy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	xcomp	_	_
17	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	thought	thought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	sultan	sultan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stop** | past · passive |  | sun's ears |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: subject=Eventuality |
| 2 | **tremble** | past | sun's legs |  |  |  |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **grow** | past | sun's tongue |  |  | the thought of the sultan |  | heavy *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at thought=Location |
| 4 | **think** |  |  | the sultan |  |  |  |  | nom thought «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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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