---
title: From time to time he would give his workmen a sign with his staff, f… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: From time to time he would give his workmen a sign with his staff, for it was useless to speak amid such a noise. Who acts: man, it. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Underground Workers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Underground Workers, sentence 31

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From time to time he would give his workmen a sign with his staff, for it was useless to speak amid such a noise.

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**Who acts:** man, it · **What happens:** give, be, speak · **To what, where:** workmen, amid · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Underground Workers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, it), 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:pg641:25:31
# text = From time to time he would give his workmen a sign with his staff, for it was useless to speak amid such a noise.
1	From	from	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	workmen	workman	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	sign	sign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
12	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	staff	staff	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
18	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
19	useless	useless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
22	amid	amid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
23	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	25	det:predet	_	_
24	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	noise	noise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | would | man | man's workmen |  |  | time |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent workman=Recipient sign=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | past | it |  |  |  |  | useless *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **speak** *speech: other* | to-infinitive |  | amid and such noise |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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