---
title: And he sat and read till the cocks crew and it grew light, and the d… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And he sat and read till the cocks crew and it grew light, and the dates were still on the tree. Who acts: sun, cocks, bird, 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.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nunda, Eater of People, sentence 47

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And he sat and read till the cocks crew and it grew light, and the dates were still on the tree.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sun, cocks, bird, dates · **What happens:** sit, read, crew, grow, be · **To what, where:** tree

<!-- .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 (sun, cocks, bird, 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:pg641:29:47
# text = And he sat and read till the cocks crew and it grew light, and the dates were still on the tree.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	read	read	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	cocks	cock	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	crew	crew	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	light	light	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	dates	date	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nsubj	_	_
18	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
19	still	still	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
20	on	on	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | sun |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **read** | past | sun *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **crew** | present | the cocks |  |  |  |  |  | vn captain-29.8-1 «NP V PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **grow** | past | bird |  |  |  |  | light *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **is** | past | the dates |  |  | the tree | still |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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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