---
title: It was a fact, however, as we shall see in the course of our story. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a fact, however, as we shall see in the course of our story. Who acts: three, we. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, sentence 16

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It was a fact, however, as we shall see in the course of our story.

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**Who acts:** three, we · **What happens:** be, see · **To what, where:** fact, course

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (three, we), 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:pg641:24:16
# text = It was a fact, however, as we shall see in the course of our story.
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	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	fact	fact	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	however	however	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
9	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | three | a fact |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | shall | we | a fact *not said here* |  | the course of our story |  | however *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer fact=Stimulus |

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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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