---
title: But as far as I have seen and heard I cannot speak well of them. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But as far as I have seen and heard I cannot speak well of them. Who acts: I. 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 68

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But as far as I have seen and heard I cannot speak well of them.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** see, hear, not speak · **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 (I), 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:pg641:25:68
# text = But as far as I have seen and heard I cannot speak well of them.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
2	as	as	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	13	advmod	_	_
4	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	conj	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
14	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	13	advmod	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | present · perfect | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **hear** | participle | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **not** **speak** *speech: other* | can | I |  |  |  |  | of doings *= doing*; far, well *property* | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=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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