---
title: Then he picked up some cards, and played with the unknown men as if… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then he picked up some cards, and played with the unknown men as if he had known them all his life. Who acts: Hans. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Headless Dwarfs, sentence 19

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Then he picked up some cards, and played with the unknown men as if he had known them all his life.

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**Who acts:** Hans · **What happens:** pick up, play, know · **To what, where:** cards, Hans

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hans), 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:pg641:33:19
# text = Then he picked up some cards, and played with the unknown men as if he had known them all his life.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	picked	pick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	up	up	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	6	det	_	_
6	cards	card	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	unknown	unknown	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
14	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
15	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj:pass	_	_
17	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
18	known	know	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	9	advcl	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	_
20	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	22	det:predet	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pick up** | past | Hans | some cards |  |  | then |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent card=Topic |
| 2 | **play** | past | Hans *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with the unknown men | vn play-114.2-1 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with man=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **know** | past · perfect · passive |  | Hans |  |  |  | Hans's life *obl:unmarked* | 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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