---
title: He did this so often that at length his strength seemed exhausted, a… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He did this so often that at length his strength seemed exhausted, and he sank almost breathless on the ground. Who acts: friend, length. 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 74

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He did this so often that at length his strength seemed exhausted, and he sank almost breathless on the ground.

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**Who acts:** friend, length · **What happens:** do, seem, exhaust, sink · **To what, where:** this

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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 (friend, length), 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:pg641:25:74
# text = He did this so often that at length his strength seemed exhausted, and he sank almost breathless on the ground.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	obj	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	often	often	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	strength	strength	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
12	exhausted	exhaust	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	sank	sink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
17	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	breathless	breathless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	xcomp	_	_
19	on	on	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | friend | this |  |  |  | often *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent this=Eventuality |
| 2 | **seem** | past | length |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 3 | **exhaust** | participle | length *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **sink** | past | friend |  |  |  |  | breathless *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

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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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