---
title: Never in their lives had the cousin and her daughters seen such a su… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Never in their lives had the cousin and her daughters seen such a supper, and they were delighted and astonished at it. Who acts: lives, daughters, tables. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Two in a Sack, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Two in a Sack, sentence 23

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Never in their lives had the cousin and her daughters seen such a supper, and they were delighted and astonished at it.

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**Who acts:** lives, daughters, tables · **What happens:** not have, see, be · **To what, where:** cousin, supper

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Two in a Sack. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lives, daughters, tables), 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:pg641:17:23
# text = Never in their lives had the cousin and her daughters seen such a supper, and they were delighted and astonished at it.
1	Never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
2	in	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	lives	life	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	cousin	cousin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	daughters	daughter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	conj	_	_
11	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl	_	_
12	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	14	det:predet	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	supper	supper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
17	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
19	delighted	delighted	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	advcl	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	astonished	astonished	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	conj	_	_
22	at	at	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **have** | past | tables's lives | the cousin and life's daughters |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cousin=Patient |
| 2 | **see** | participle | life's daughters *not said here* | such supper |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer supper=Stimulus |
| 3 | **is** | past | tables *= table* |  |  |  |  | delighted *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** |  | tables *= table* *not said here* |  |  | cousin |  |  | tree rules |

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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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