---
title: The whole world would sink to idleness if men were not forced to ear… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The whole world would sink to idleness if men were not forced to earn their daily bread. Who acts: whole world, men. 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 50

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The whole world would sink to idleness if men were not forced to earn their daily bread.

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**Who acts:** whole world, men · **What happens:** sink, not force, not earn · **To what, where:** men, daily bread

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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 (whole world, men), 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:pg641:25:50
# text = The whole world would sink to idleness if men were not forced to earn their daily bread.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	sink	sink	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	idleness	idleness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
9	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	forced	force	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	advcl	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	earn	earn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
16	daily	daily	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	bread	bread	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sink** | would | the whole world |  |  |  |  | to idleness | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **not** **force** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · passive |  | men |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **earn** | to-infinitive | men *not said here* | Hans's daily bread |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bread=Theme |

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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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