---
title: Very soon some soldiers came to meet them, while others ran off to t… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Very soon some soldiers came to meet them, while others ran off to tell the sultan of their approach. Who acts: soldiers, others. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of a Gazelle, sentence 90

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Very soon some soldiers came to meet them, while others ran off to tell the sultan of their approach.

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**Who acts:** soldiers, others · **What happens:** come, meet, run off, tell, approach · **To what, where:** soldiers, sultan · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (soldiers, others), 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:pg641:15:90
# text = Very soon some soldiers came to meet them, while others ran off to tell the sultan of their approach.
1	Very	very	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	soon	soon	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	5	advmod	_	_
3	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	4	det	_	_
4	soldiers	soldier	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	meet	meet	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	others	other	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
12	ran	run	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
13	off	off	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	sultan	sultan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	approach	approach	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | some soldiers |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **meet** | to-infinitive | some soldiers *not said here* | soldiers *= soldier* |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **run off** | past | others |  |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | others *not said here* | the sultan of others's approach |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent sultan=Recipient |
| 5 | **approach** |  | others *= other* |  |  |  |  |  | nom approach «act intransitive»: poss=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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