---
title: My father is still alive, but I am nothing to him, and my stepmother… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: My father is still alive, but I am nothing to him, and my stepmother beats me all the day long. Who acts: father, I, stepmother. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 42

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My father is still alive, but I am nothing to him, and my stepmother beats me all the day long.

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**Who acts:** father, I, stepmother · **What happens:** be, beat · **To what, where:** nothing, guest, me

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (father, I, stepmother), 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:pg641:2:42
# text = My father is still alive, but I am nothing to him, and my stepmother beats me all the day long.
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	still	still	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	alive	alive	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	5	conj	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	beats	beat	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
18	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	21	det:predet	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl:unmarked	_	_
22	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | My father |  |  |  | still | alive *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** | present | I | nothing | guest |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **beat** | present | my stepmother | me |  |  |  | long *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location i=Theme |

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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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