---
title: And about midnight he arose to look at the tree, and the dates were… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And about midnight he arose to look at the tree, and the dates were all there--beautiful dates, swinging in bunches. Who acts: youth, dates. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/41/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [The Nunda, Eater of People](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/) / 41

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nunda, Eater of People, sentence 41

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And about midnight he arose to look at the tree, and the dates were all there--beautiful dates, swinging in bunches.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** youth, dates · **What happens:** arise, look, be, swing

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (youth, dates), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg641:29:41
# text = And about midnight he arose to look at the tree, and the dates were all there--beautiful dates, swinging in bunches.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	about	about	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	midnight	midnight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	arose	arise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	dates	date	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
15	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	all	all	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	dates	date	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
22	swinging	swing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	advcl	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	bunches	bunch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **arise** | past | youth |  |  |  | midnight |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **look** | to-infinitive | youth *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at the tree | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at tree=Theme |
| 3 | **is** | past | the dates |  |  |  |  | beautiful dates *obl*; all, there *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **swing** | gerund | the dates *not said here* |  |  |  |  | in bunches | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.patient V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient in bunch=Attribute |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/40/)
- next →: [sentence 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/42/)
- ↑ back to [The Nunda, Eater of People](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/29/)