---
title: The twins were by this time nearly two years old, when the queen was… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The twins were by this time nearly two years old, when the queen was taken suddenly ill. Who acts: twins. 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 51

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The twins were by this time nearly two years old, when the queen was taken suddenly ill.

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**Who acts:** twins · **What happens:** be, take · **To what, where:** queen

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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 (twins), 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:pg641:12:51
# text = The twins were by this time nearly two years old, when the queen was taken suddenly ill.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	twins	twin	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
4	by	by	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	det	_	_
6	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
7	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
9	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl:unmarked	_	_
10	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	16	mark	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	aux:pass	_	_
16	taken	take	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	conj	_	_
17	suddenly	suddenly	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	ill	ill	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the twins |  |  |  | time; year | old *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **take** | past · passive |  | the queen |  |  |  | ill *property* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: subject=Destination |

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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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