---
title: And when the egg shakes the city quakes, and when the egg shall be b… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And when the egg shakes the city quakes, and when the egg shall be broken the city shall be destroyed. Who acts: egg. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Virgilius the Sorcerer, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Virgilius the Sorcerer, sentence 117

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And when the egg shakes the city quakes, and when the egg shall be broken the city shall be destroyed.

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**Who acts:** egg · **What happens:** shake, break, destroy · **To what, where:** city quakes, egg, city

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Virgilius the Sorcerer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (egg), 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:pg641:43:117
# text = And when the egg shakes the city quakes, and when the egg shall be broken the city shall be destroyed.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	5	mark	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	egg	egg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	shakes	shake	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	quakes	quake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
11	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	16	mark	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	egg	egg	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj:pass	_	_
14	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	broken	break	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj:pass	_	_
19	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	aux:pass	_	_
21	destroyed	destroy	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **shake** | present | the egg | the city quakes |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent quake=Patient |
| 2 | **break** | shall · passive |  | the egg |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 3 | **destroy** | shall · passive |  | the city |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: subject=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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