---
title: It was some time before the bait took, but at length--even emperors… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was some time before the bait took, but at length--even emperors are only men! Who acts: word, bait, emperors. 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 clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Boys With the Golden Stars, sentence 51

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It was some time before the bait took, but at length--even emperors are only men!

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**Who acts:** word, bait, emperors · **What happens:** be, take · **To what, where:** time, length, men

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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 (word, bait, emperors), 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:pg641:35:51
# text = It was some time before the bait took, but at length--even emperors are only men!
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	4	det	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	bait	bait	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	at	at	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	length	length	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	even	even	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	emperors	emperor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nsubj	_	_
16	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	only	only	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | word | some time |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **take** | past | the bait | length |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent length=Theme |
| 3 | **is a** | present | emperors | men |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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