---
title: The hours passed as if they were minutes, till the princess said tha… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The hours passed as if they were minutes, till the princess said that she could be no longer absent from her father. Who acts: hours, presents, princess. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Virgilius the Sorcerer, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Virgilius the Sorcerer, sentence 102

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The hours passed as if they were minutes, till the princess said that she could be no longer absent from her father.

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**Who acts:** hours, presents, princess · **What happens:** pass, be, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Virgilius the Sorcerer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hours, presents, princess), 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:pg641:43:102
# text = The hours passed as if they were minutes, till the princess said that she could be no longer absent from her father.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	hours	hour	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	passed	pass	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	as	as	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
5	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
8	minutes	minute	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	princess	princess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
15	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
16	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
17	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	20	cop	_	_
18	no	no	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	longer	long	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	20	advmod	_	_
20	absent	absent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	ccomp	_	_
21	from	from	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pass** | past | the hours |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | presents *= present* |  |  |  |  | as minutes | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the princess |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | could | princess |  |  |  |  | from princess's father; absent, long *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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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