---
title: But he only chose from them all the three that the emperor had descr… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But he only chose from them all the three that the emperor had described. Who acts: man. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Enchanted Knife, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Enchanted Knife, sentence 27

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But he only chose from them all the three that the emperor had described.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** choose, describe · **To what, where:** three

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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 (man), 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:pg641:23:27
# text = But he only chose from them all the three that the emperor had described.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	chose	choose	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	from	from	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	_
7	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	9	det:predet	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	emperor	emperor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
13	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	described	describe	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **choose** | past | man |  |  |  |  | from horses *= horse* | tree rules |
| 2 | **describe** | past · perfect · passive |  | all three |  |  |  |  | vn characterize-29.2-1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: subject=Theme |

<!-- .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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