---
title: Take a lock of my fur, and when you need me twist it in your fingers.’ — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Take a lock of my fur, and when you need me twist it in your fingers.’ Who acts: you. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples, sentence 58

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Take a lock of my fur, and when you need me twist it in your fingers.’

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** take, need, twist · **To what, where:** lock, me, fingers

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples. 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:pg641:7:58
# text = Take a lock of my fur, and when you need me twist it in your fingers.’
1	Take	take	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	lock	lock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	fur	fur	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
9	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	need	need	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	twist	twist	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	fingers	finger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | imperative | you *not said here* | a lock of my fur |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lock=Theme |
| 2 | **need** | present | you | me |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot i=Theme |
| 3 | **twist** | infinitive | you *not said here* | lock |  | your fingers |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent it=Theme |

<!-- .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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