---
title: It was not till they drew near the town that the princess stooped an… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: It was not till they drew near the town that the princess stooped and asked Sunlight what they should do. Who acts: flash, princess, words. 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 99

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
It was not till they drew near the town that the princess stooped and asked Sunlight what they should do.

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**Who acts:** flash, princess, words · **What happens:** not be, stoop, ask, do · **To what, where:** town, Sunlight

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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 (flash, princess, words), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg641:39:99
# text = It was not till they drew near the town that the princess stooped and asked Sunlight what they should do.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj:outer	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
4	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	drew	draw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	near	near	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	stooped	stoop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
16	Sunlight	sunlight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
17	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	20	obj	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | past | flash |  |  | the town |  | draw *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **stoop** | past | the princess | the town *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location town=Theme |
| 3 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the princess *not said here* | Sunlight |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent sunlight=Recipient |
| 4 | **do** | should | words *= word* | Sunlight |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

<!-- .note -->
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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