---
title: They were just about to land, when the mother of the genius stood be… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They were just about to land, when the mother of the genius stood before them. Who acts: slaves, mother. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 2, sentence 94

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They were just about to land, when the mother of the genius stood before them.

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**Who acts:** slaves, mother · **What happens:** land, stand

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (slaves, mother), 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:pg641:39:94
# text = They were just about to land, when the mother of the genius stood before them.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
3	just	just	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	about	about	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	land	land	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
8	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	genius	genius	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	_
14	stood	stand	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
15	before	before	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **land** | past | slaves *= slave* |  |  |  |  | about *property* | vn pocket-9.10-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **stand** | past | the mother of the genius |  |  |  | before slaves *= slave* |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before they=Location |

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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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