---
title: She felt as if she were listening to a language which no one but her… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: She felt as if she were listening to a language which no one but herself could understand. Who acts: crack. 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 58

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She felt as if she were listening to a language which no one but herself could understand.

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**Who acts:** crack · **What happens:** feel, listen, understand · **To what, where:** one

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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 (crack), 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:pg641:35:58
# text = She felt as if she were listening to a language which no one but herself could understand.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
4	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	listening	listen	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	language	language	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	which	which	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	13	det	_	_
12	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	13	det	_	_
13	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	appos	_	_
14	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	herself	herself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	17	nsubj	_	_
16	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **feel** | past | crack |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **listen** | past · progressive | crack |  |  |  |  | to a language | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to language=Theme |
| 3 | **understand** | could | crack | which one *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer one=Stimulus |

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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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