---
title: ‘He is sitting in council with his nobles,’ answered the casket. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘He is sitting in council with his nobles,’ answered the casket. Who acts: Petru, sitting. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 2, sentence 121

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‘He is sitting in council with his nobles,’ answered the casket.

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**Who acts:** Petru, sitting · **What happens:** sit, answer · **To what, where:** council, casket · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Petru, sitting), 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:pg641:20:121
# text = ‘He is sitting in council with his nobles,’ answered the casket.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	sitting	sit	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	12	csubj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	council	council	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
7	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	nobles	noble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
12	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	casket	casket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | present · progressive | Petru |  |  | council |  | with Petru's nobles | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in council=Location |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | sitting | the casket |  |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent casket=Eventuality |

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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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