---
title: For the next few weeks Virgilius hardly ate or slept, so busy was he… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: For the next few weeks Virgilius hardly ate or slept, so busy was he in learning the magic the books contained. Who acts: Virgilius, books. 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 24

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For the next few weeks Virgilius hardly ate or slept, so busy was he in learning the magic the books contained.

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**Who acts:** Virgilius, books · **What happens:** eat, sleep, learn, contain · **To what, where:** magic · **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 (Virgilius, books), 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:pg641:43:24
# text = For the next few weeks Virgilius hardly ate or slept, so busy was he in learning the magic the books contained.
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	next	next	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
4	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	weeks	week	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	_
6	Virgilius	Virgilius	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	slept	sleep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	busy	busy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	advcl	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
17	learning	learn	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	magic	magic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	books	book	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nsubj	_	_
22	contained	contain	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **eat** | past | Virgilius |  |  |  | week | hardly *property* | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **sleep** | past | Virgilius *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **learn** | past · progressive | Virgilius | the magic |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **contain** | past | the books |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprise-107.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot |

<!-- .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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