---
title: It was not yesterday, nor the day before, that Petru had fought his… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was not yesterday, nor the day before, that Petru had fought his first battle, and he bore himself bravely. Who acts: match, Petru. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 3, sentence 117

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It was not yesterday, nor the day before, that Petru had fought his first battle, and he bore himself bravely.

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**Who acts:** match, Petru · **What happens:** not be, fight, bear, battle · **To what, where:** yesterday, first battle, Petru

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (match, Petru), 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:pg641:21:117
# text = It was not yesterday, nor the day before, that Petru had fought his first battle, and he bore himself bravely.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	yesterday	yesterday	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	8	cc	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	appos	_	_
9	before	before	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
12	Petru	Petru	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	fought	fight	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	4	parataxis	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
16	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	17	amod	_	_
17	battle	battle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
20	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
21	bore	bear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	conj	_	_
22	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	21	obj	_	_
23	bravely	bravely	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** | past | match | yesterday |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **fight** | past · perfect | Petru | Petru's first battle |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent battle=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **bear** | past | Petru | Petru |  |  |  | bravely *property* | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent himself=Patient |
| 4 | **battle** |  | Petru |  |  |  |  |  | nom battle «act transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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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