---
title: By-and-by they all grew into men, and one day they told their father… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: By-and-by they all grew into men, and one day they told their father it was high time he found wives for them. Who acts: sons, half, twelfth. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Halfman, sentence 13

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
By-and-by they all grew into men, and one day they told their father it was high time he found wives for them.

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**Who acts:** sons, half, twelfth · **What happens:** grow, tell, be, find · **To what, where:** father, high time, wives · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sons, half, twelfth), 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:pg641:41:13
# text = By-and-by they all grew into men, and one day they told their father it was high time he found wives for them.
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	by	by	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	8	advmod	_	_
8	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	into	into	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl:unmarked	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
17	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	iobj	_	_
19	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
20	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
21	high	high	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	ccomp	_	_
23	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	24	nsubj	_	_
24	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	acl:relcl	_	_
25	wives	wife	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	obj	_	_
26	for	for	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grow** | past | sons *= son* |  |  |  |  | into men *result* | vn become-109.1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient into man=Result |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | sons *= son* |  | sons's father |  | day |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent father=Recipient |
| 3 | **is a** | past | half | high time |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **find** | past | twelfth | wives |  |  |  | for sons *= son* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent wife=Theme for they=Beneficiary |

<!-- .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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