---
title: So the twelve sons saddled their horses and rode for twelve days, ti… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: So the twelve sons saddled their horses and rode for twelve days, till they met an old woman. Who acts: twelve sons, sons. 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 15

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So the twelve sons saddled their horses and rode for twelve days, till they met an old woman.

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**Who acts:** twelve sons, sons · **What happens:** saddle, meet · **To what, where:** horses, old woman

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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 (twelve sons, 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:pg641:41:15
# text = So the twelve sons saddled their horses and rode for twelve days, till they met an old woman.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	twelve	twelve	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	nummod	_	_
4	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	saddled	saddle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	horses	horse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	rode	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	twelve	twelve	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
17	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **saddle** | past | the twelve sons |  | sons's horses and rode |  | day |  | vn butter-9.9 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent horse=Destination |
| 2 | **meet** | past | sons *= son* | a old woman |  |  |  |  | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent woman=Co-Agent |

<!-- .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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