---
title: However, it was dangerous to go back, and they rode on as fast as th… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: However, it was dangerous to go back, and they rode on as fast as the horse would go. Who acts: it, sisters, horse. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Prince Who Wanted to See the World, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Prince Who Wanted to See the World, sentence 53

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However, it was dangerous to go back, and they rode on as fast as the horse would go.

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**Who acts:** it, sisters, horse · **What happens:** be, go back, ride on, go

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Prince Who Wanted to See the World. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (it, sisters, horse), 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:pg641:42:53
# text = However, it was dangerous to go back, and they rode on as fast as the horse would go.
1	However	however	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	dangerous	dangerous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	csubj	_	_
8	back	back	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	rode	ride	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
13	on	on	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
14	as	as	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	12	advmod	_	_
16	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
19	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | it |  |  |  |  | dangerous, however *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **go back** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **ride on** | past | sisters *= sister* |  |  |  |  | fast *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **go** | would | the horse |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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