---
title: ‘Fetch quickly nine buffalo skins; smear them well with tar, and lay… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Fetch quickly nine buffalo skins; smear them well with tar, and lay them on my back. Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 3, sentence 25

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‘Fetch quickly nine buffalo skins; smear them well with tar, and lay them on my back.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** fetch, smear, lay · **To what, where:** nine buffalo skins, skins, back

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, 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 (you), 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:pg641:40:25
# text = ‘Fetch quickly nine buffalo skins; smear them well with tar, and lay them on my back.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Fetch	fetch	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	nine	nine	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	nummod	_	_
5	buffalo	buffalo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	skins	skin	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
8	smear	smear	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	8	advmod	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	tar	tar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	lay	lay	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
16	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	on	on	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fetch** | imperative | you *not said here* | nine buffalo skins |  |  |  | quickly *property* | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent skin=Theme |
| 2 | **smear** | infinitive | you *not said here* | skins *= skin* |  |  |  | with tar; well *property* | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.destination PP.theme»: agent=Agent they=Destination with tar=Theme |
| 3 | **lay** | infinitive | you *not said here* | skins *= skin* |  | my back |  |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent they=Theme on back=Destination |

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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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