---
title: The cow had ceased to give milk, and it was too early for the fruit… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The cow had ceased to give milk, and it was too early for the fruit trees to ripen. Who acts: milk. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Stan Bolovan, sentence 41

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The cow had ceased to give milk, and it was too early for the fruit trees to ripen.

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**Who acts:** milk · **What happens:** cease, give, be, ripen · **To what, where:** cow, milk

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (milk), 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:pg641:13:41
# text = The cow had ceased to give milk, and it was too early for the fruit trees to ripen.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	ceased	cease	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	too	too	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	early	early	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	4	advmod	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	fruit	fruit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	compound	_	_
17	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	_
18	to	to	PART	TO	_	19	mark	_	_
19	ripen	ripen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	17	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cease** | past · perfect · passive |  | the cow |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **give** | to-infinitive |  | milk |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent milk=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | milk |  |  |  |  | for the fruit trees; early *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **ripen** | to-infinitive | milk *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

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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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