---
title: Neither spoke for some minutes, but stood holding each other’s hands… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Neither spoke for some minutes, but stood holding each other’s hands for joy, till at last they both cried out that nothing but death should part them. Who acts: Neither, hands, nothing. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Knife, with its dependency tree and the pragm
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/23/13/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [The Enchanted Knife](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/23/) / 13

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Enchanted Knife, sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Neither spoke for some minutes, but stood holding each other’s hands for joy, till at last they both cried out that nothing but death should part them.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Neither, hands, nothing · **What happens:** speak, stand, hold, cry out, part · **To what, where:** hands, last · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Knife. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Neither, hands, nothing), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg641:23:13
# text = Neither spoke for some minutes, but stood holding each other’s hands for joy, till at last they both cried out that nothing but death should part them.
1	Neither	neither	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	2	nsubj	_	_
2	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	for	for	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	5	det	_	_
5	minutes	minute	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	holding	hold	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	xcomp	_	_
10	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	11	det	_	_
11	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’s	's	PART	POS	_	11	case	_	_
13	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	joy	joy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
17	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	obl	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	both	both	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
22	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
23	out	out	ADP	RP	_	22	compound:prt	_	_
24	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	29	mark	_	_
25	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	29	nsubj	_	_
26	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	death	death	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	conj	_	_
28	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	29	aux	_	_
29	part	part	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	advcl	_	_
30	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | Neither |  |  |  | minute |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **stand** | past | Neither *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **hold** | gerund | Neither *not said here* | each other's hands |  |  |  | for joy | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hand=Theme |
| 4 | **cry out** *speech: express* | past | hands *= hand* |  |  | last |  | both *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at last=Location |
| 5 | **part** | should | nothing | hands *= hand* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/23/12/)
- next →: [sentence 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/23/14/)
- ↑ back to [The Enchanted Knife](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/23/)