---
title: The king’s palace was a long way off, yet it seemed only a few minut… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The king’s palace was a long way off, yet it seemed only a few minutes before Dotterine drew up at the great gates. Who acts: palace, it, Dotterine. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Child Who Came From an Egg, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Child Who Came From an Egg, sentence 118

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The king’s palace was a long way off, yet it seemed only a few minutes before Dotterine drew up at the great gates.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** palace, it, Dotterine · **What happens:** be, seem, draw up · **To what, where:** long way, great gates

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Child Who Came From an Egg. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (palace, it, Dotterine), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg641:12:118
# text = The king’s palace was a long way off, yet it seemed only a few minutes before Dotterine drew up at the great gates.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’s	's	PART	POS	_	2	case	_	_
4	palace	palace	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	off	off	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	yet	yet	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	acl:relcl	_	_
14	only	only	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	minutes	minute	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
18	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	Dotterine	Dotterine	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
20	drew	draw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	advcl	_	_
21	up	up	ADP	RP	_	20	compound:prt	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	gates	gate	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | the king's palace | a long way |  |  |  | off *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **seem** | past | it | a long way *not said here* |  |  | minute |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme way=Attribute |
| 3 | **draw up** | past | Dotterine |  |  | the great gates |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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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