---
title: The minister tried to argue the point with him, but at length the fo… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The minister tried to argue the point with him, but at length the following agreement was come to. Who acts: minister. 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 52

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The minister tried to argue the point with him, but at length the following agreement was come to.

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**Who acts:** minister · **What happens:** try, argue, follow, come · **To what, where:** point, following agreement, length

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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 (minister), 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:pg641:33:52
# text = The minister tried to argue the point with him, but at length the following agreement was come to.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	minister	minister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	argue	argue	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	point	point	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	following	follow	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	16	amod	_	_
16	agreement	agreement	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux:pass	_	_
18	come	come	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
19	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | the minister |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **argue** *speech: disagree* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | the minister *not said here* | the point |  |  |  | with minister | vn chit\_chat-37.6-1 «NP V NP PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent point=Topic with he=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **follow** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **come** | past · passive |  | the following agreement |  | length |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme |

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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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