---
title: ‘I saw you come in, but the work was pressing, and I could not stop… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I saw you come in, but the work was pressing, and I could not stop to speak to you. Who acts: I, you, work. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Underground Workers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/25/35/)

<!-- 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 Underground Workers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/25/) / 35

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Underground Workers, sentence 35

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I saw you come in, but the work was pressing, and I could not stop to speak to you.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, you, work · **What happens:** see, come in, press, not stop, speak · **To what, where:** you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (I, you, work), 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:pg641:25:35
# text = ‘I saw you come in, but the work was pressing, and I could not stop to speak to you.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	come	come	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
6	in	in	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	pressing	press	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
15	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	stop	stop	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	20	mark	_	_
20	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	18	xcomp	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **come in** | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **press** | past · progressive | the work |  |  |  |  |  | vn push-12-1-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **not** **stop** | could | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality |
| 5 | **speak** *speech: other* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  | you |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to you=Co-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.

<!-- 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 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/25/34/)
- next →: [sentence 36](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/25/36/)
- ↑ back to [The Underground Workers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/25/)