---
title: In his absence Hans wandered from one treasure chamber to another, s… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In his absence Hans wandered from one treasure chamber to another, sometimes trying to break off a little lump of gold, but never able to do it. Who acts: Hans, friend. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Underground Workers, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/25/59/)

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Underground Workers, sentence 59

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In his absence Hans wandered from one treasure chamber to another, sometimes trying to break off a little lump of gold, but never able to do it.

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**Who acts:** Hans, friend · **What happens:** wander, try, break off, do, absent · **To what, where:** absence, little lump, lump

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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 (Hans, friend), 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:pg641:25:59
# text = In his absence Hans wandered from one treasure chamber to another, sometimes trying to break off a little lump of gold, but never able to do it.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	absence	absence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	Hans	Hans	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	wandered	wander	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	from	from	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
8	treasure	treasure	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	chamber	chamber	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	14	advmod	_	_
14	trying	try	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	break	break	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	off	off	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	lump	lump	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	gold	gold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
24	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
25	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	26	advmod	_	_
26	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	parataxis	_	_
27	to	to	PART	TO	_	28	mark	_	_
28	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	xcomp	_	_
29	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	28	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wander** | past | Hans |  |  | friend's absence |  | from one treasure chamber to another | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in absence=Trajectory |
| 2 | **try** | gerund | Hans *not said here* |  |  |  |  | sometimes *property* | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **break off** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Hans *not said here* | a little lump of gold |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer lump=Patient |
| 4 | **do** | to-infinitive | Hans *not said here* | lump |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |
| 5 | **absent** |  | friend |  |  |  |  |  | nom absence «state transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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