---
title: One day they all three told their mother they meant to get married. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: One day they all three told their mother they meant to get married. Who acts: sons. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Frog, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/36/3/)

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Frog, sentence 3

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One day they all three told their mother they meant to get married.

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**Who acts:** sons · **What happens:** tell, mean, get, marry · **To what, where:** mother · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Frog. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sons), 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:pg641:36:3
# text = One day they all three told their mother they meant to get married.
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	5	det	_	_
5	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nmod	_	_
6	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	iobj	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	meant	mean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	married	marry	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | sons *= son* |  | sons's mother |  | day |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent mother=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **mean** | past | sons *= son* |  |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **get** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | sons *= son* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **marry** | participle | sons *= son* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |

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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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