---
title: ‘Nothing was that is, and the world was not a world when I was born,… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Nothing was that is, and the world was not a world when I was born,’ said she. Who acts: world, Nothing. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/21/52/)

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 3, sentence 52

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‘Nothing was that is, and the world was not a world when I was born,’ said she.

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**Who acts:** world, Nothing · **What happens:** be, not be, bear, say · **To what, where:** that, world, I · **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 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (world, Nothing), 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:pg641:21:52
# text = ‘Nothing was that is, and the world was not a world when I was born,’ said she.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	20	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
4	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	nmod	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	appos	_	_
14	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	17	advmod	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj:pass	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux:pass	_	_
17	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
20	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
21	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | that |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **is a** | past | the world | a world |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **bear** | past · passive |  | I |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Nothing |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=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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