---
title: They rode all day till they got to the town where their real uncle l… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They rode all day till they got to the town where their real uncle lived, and inquired the way to his house. Who acts: uncle, real uncle. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/43/)

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Halfman, sentence 43

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They rode all day till they got to the town where their real uncle lived, and inquired the way to his house.

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**Who acts:** uncle, real uncle · **What happens:** ride, get, live, inquire · **To what, where:** way

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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 (uncle, real uncle), 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:pg641:41:43
# text = They rode all day till they got to the town where their real uncle lived, and inquired the way to his house.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	rode	ride	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	4	det	_	_
4	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl:unmarked	_	_
5	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
11	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	15	advmod	_	_
12	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	real	real	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	uncle	uncle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	lived	live	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	inquired	inquire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ride** | past | uncle |  |  |  | day |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **get** | past | uncle |  |  |  |  | to the town *result* | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient to town=Result |
| 3 | **live** | past | uncle's real uncle |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **inquire** *speech: other* | past | uncle *not said here* | the way |  |  |  | to Halfman's house | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent way=Recipient |

<!-- .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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