---
title: ‘Cease talking nonsense,’ replied the minister, ‘and give all your m… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Cease talking nonsense,’ replied the minister, ‘and give all your mind to getting us to the town before nightfall.’ Who acts: Cease, your. 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 71

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‘Cease talking nonsense,’ replied the minister, ‘and give all your mind to getting us to the town before nightfall.’

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**Who acts:** Cease, your · **What happens:** talk, reply, give, get, mind · **To what, where:** minister, mind, us · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Cease, your), 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:pg641:33:71
# text = ‘Cease talking nonsense,’ replied the minister, ‘and give all your mind to getting us to the town before nightfall.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Cease	cease	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
3	talking	talk	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	amod	_	_
4	nonsense	nonsense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	minister	minister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	‘	‘	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
14	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	16	det:predet	_	_
15	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	mind	mind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
17	to	to	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
18	getting	get	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
19	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	18	iobj	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
23	before	before	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	nightfall	nightfall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **talk** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Cease and talking nonsense | the minister |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **give** | infinitive |  | your mind |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mind=Theme |
| 4 | **get** | gerund |  |  | us |  | before nightfall | to the town | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer we=Stimulus |
| 5 | **mind** |  | your |  |  |  |  |  | nom mind «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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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