---
title: ‘Idiots!’ roared the master; ‘of course it was they!’ — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Idiots!’ roared the master; ‘of course it was they!’ Who acts: Idiots. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 3, sentence 16

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‘Idiots!’ roared the master; ‘of course it was they!’

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**Who acts:** Idiots · **What happens:** roar, be · **To what, where:** master, brook

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, 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 (Idiots), 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:pg641:11:16
# text = ‘Idiots!’ roared the master; ‘of course it was they!’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Idiots	idiot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	roared	roar	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	master	master	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	fixed	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **roar** | past | Idiots | the master |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location master=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | past | Idiots *not said here* | brook |  |  |  | of course | tree rules |

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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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