---
title: At length she told the queen what she had seen, but they determined… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At length she told the queen what she had seen, but they determined to keep it as a secret between themselves. Who acts: nurse, children. 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 50

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At length she told the queen what she had seen, but they determined to keep it as a secret between themselves.

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**Who acts:** nurse, children · **What happens:** tell, see, determine, keep · **To what, where:** queen, length · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (nurse, children), 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:pg641:12:50
# text = At length she told the queen what she had seen, but they determined to keep it as a secret between themselves.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	iobj	_	_
7	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	obj	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	determined	determine	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	as	as	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	secret	secret	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
21	between	between	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | nurse |  | the queen | length |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent queen=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **see** | past · perfect | nurse |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus |
| 3 | **determine** | past | children *= child* |  |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **keep** | to-infinitive | children *= child* *not said here* | length |  |  |  | as a secret; between children *= child* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent it=Theme between themselves=Location |

<!-- .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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