---
title: They wandered far through deserts and through forests, and at length… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They wandered far through deserts and through forests, and at length came to the foot of a great hill. Who acts: footprints. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nunda, Eater of People, sentence 189

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They wandered far through deserts and through forests, and at length came to the foot of a great hill.

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**Who acts:** footprints · **What happens:** wander, come · **To what, where:** deserts, length

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (footprints), 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:pg641:29:189
# text = They wandered far through deserts and through forests, and at length came to the foot of a great hill.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	wandered	wander	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	far	far	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	2	advmod	_	_
4	through	through	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	deserts	desert	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	through	through	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	forests	forest	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
13	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	foot	foot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	hill	hill	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wander** | past | footprints *= footprint* |  |  | deserts and forests |  | far *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme through desert=Trajectory |
| 2 | **come** | past |  |  |  | length |  | to the foot of a great hill | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to foot=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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.

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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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