---
title: At present night was not far off, and he must consider how best to f… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: At present night was not far off, and he must consider how best to fight with the dragon. Who acts: matter. 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 55

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At present night was not far off, and he must consider how best to fight with the dragon.

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**Who acts:** matter · **What happens:** not be, consider, fight · **To what, where:** best

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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 (matter), 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:pg641:13:55
# text = At present night was not far off, and he must consider how best to fight with the dragon.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
2	present	present	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
6	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	7	advmod	_	_
7	off	off	ADV	RB	_	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	consider	consider	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
13	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
14	best	good	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	12	obj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	fight	fight	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	dragon	dragon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past |  |  |  |  | night | far, off *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **consider** | must | matter | best |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent good=Attribute clause=Theme |
| 3 | **fight** | to-infinitive | matter *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with the dragon | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with dragon=Co-Agent |

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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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