---
title: ‘No, while he is eating it,’ said the second boy, stepping across th… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘No, while he is eating it,’ said the second boy, stepping across the threshold. Who acts: emperor, second boy. 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 91

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‘No, while he is eating it,’ said the second boy, stepping across the threshold.

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**Who acts:** emperor, second boy · **What happens:** eat, say, step · **To what, where:** porter, threshold · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (emperor, second boy), 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:pg641:35:91
# text = ‘No, while he is eating it,’ said the second boy, stepping across the threshold.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	No	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
4	while	while	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	ccomp	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	second	second	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	14	amod	_	_
14	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	stepping	step	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	advcl	_	_
17	across	across	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	threshold	threshold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **eat** | present · progressive | emperor | porter |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the second boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **step** | gerund | the second boy *not said here* |  |  | the threshold |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme across threshold=Trajectory |

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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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