---
title: They never sleep, night or day, but every now and then a hermit come… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They never sleep, night or day, but every now and then a hermit comes to visit them, and from him they learn certain things it is needful for them to know. Who acts: horses, hermit, water. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 3, with its depe
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 3, sentence 63

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They never sleep, night or day, but every now and then a hermit comes to visit them, and from him they learn certain things it is needful for them to know.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** horses, hermit, water · **What happens:** not sleep, come, visit, learn, be, know · **To what, where:** horses, certain things

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Girl Who Pretended to Be a Boy, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (horses, hermit, water), 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:pg641:40:63
# text = They never sleep, night or day, but every now and then a hermit comes to visit them, and from him they learn certain things it is needful for them to know.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	sleep	sleep	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
6	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
10	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	11	det	_	_
11	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	16	advmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	16	advmod	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	hermit	hermit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	comes	come	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	visit	visit	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
22	from	from	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
23	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	obl	_	_
24	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nsubj	_	_
25	learn	learn	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	_
26	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	obj	_	_
28	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	30	nsubj	_	_
29	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	30	cop	_	_
30	needful	needful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	acl:relcl	_	_
31	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	34	mark	_	_
32	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	34	nsubj	_	_
33	to	to	PART	TO	_	34	mark	_	_
34	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	30	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **sleep** | present | horses *= horse* |  |  |  | night |  | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **come** | present | a hermit |  |  |  | now; then |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **visit** | to-infinitive | a hermit *not said here* | horses *= horse* |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Co-Agent |
| 4 | **learn** | present | horses *= horse* | certain things |  |  |  | from hermit | vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V NP PP.source»: agent=Agent thing=Topic from he=Source |
| 5 | **is** | present | water | certain things *not said here* |  |  |  | needful *property* | tree rules |
| 6 | **know** | to-infinitive | horses *= horse* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .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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