---
title: Worn out and breathless, they came at length to a large stone, and h… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Worn out and breathless, they came at length to a large stone, and here the ball began to move restlessly. Who acts: backs, ball. 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 52

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Worn out and breathless, they came at length to a large stone, and here the ball began to move restlessly.

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**Who acts:** backs, ball · **What happens:** wear out, come, begin, move · **To what, where:** length

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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 (backs, ball), 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:pg641:11:52
# text = Worn out and breathless, they came at length to a large stone, and here the ball began to move restlessly.
1	Worn	wear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	7	advcl	_	_
2	out	out	ADP	RP	_	1	compound:prt	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	breathless	breathless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	19	advmod	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	move	move	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	restlessly	restlessly	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wear out** | participle | backs *= back* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V PP-Conative»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **come** | past | backs *= back* |  |  | length to a large stone |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at length=Location |
| 3 | **begin** | past | the ball |  |  | here |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **move** | to-infinitive | the ball *not said here* |  |  |  |  | restlessly *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |

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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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