---
title: The stepmother knew what it all meant, and her mind never ceased fro… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The stepmother knew what it all meant, and her mind never ceased from trying to invent some way of destroying the trees. Who acts: stepmother, wind, mind, way. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Boys With the Golden Stars, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every c
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/35/47/)

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Boys With the Golden Stars, sentence 47

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The stepmother knew what it all meant, and her mind never ceased from trying to invent some way of destroying the trees.

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**Who acts:** stepmother, wind, mind, way · **What happens:** know, mean, not cease, try, invent, destroy · **To what, where:** way, trees

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Boys With the Golden Stars. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (stepmother, wind, mind, way), 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:pg641:35:47
# text = The stepmother knew what it all meant, and her mind never ceased from trying to invent some way of destroying the trees.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	3	obj	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	all	all	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	mind	mind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
12	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	ceased	cease	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
15	trying	try	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	13	advcl	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	invent	invent	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	19	det	_	_
19	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	21	mark	_	_
21	destroying	destroy	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	19	acl	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | the stepmother |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer what=Stimulus |
| 2 | **mean** | past | wind |  |  |  |  | all *property* | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **cease** | past | stepmother's mind |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 4 | **try** | gerund | stepmother's mind *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 5 | **invent** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | stepmother's mind *not said here* | some way |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Result |
| 6 | **destroy** | gerund | some way *not said here* | the trees |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tree=Patient |
| 7 | **mind** |  | stepmother |  |  |  |  |  | nom mind «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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