---
title: For some time he walked on in pitch darkness, but he went steadily o… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: For some time he walked on in pitch darkness, but he went steadily on, and by-and-by a glimmer of light shot across the floor, and he heard a voice calling, ‘Virgilius! Who acts: boy, voice, light. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Virgilius the Sorcerer, with its dependency tree
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Virgilius the Sorcerer, sentence 7

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For some time he walked on in pitch darkness, but he went steadily on, and by-and-by a glimmer of light shot across the floor, and he heard a voice calling, ‘Virgilius!

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**Who acts:** boy, voice, light · **What happens:** walk on, go, shoot, hear, call, glimmer · **To what, where:** pitch darkness, light, floor, voice, Virgilius · **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 (boy, voice, light), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg641:43:7
# text = For some time he walked on in pitch darkness, but he went steadily on, and by-and-by a glimmer of light shot across the floor, and he heard a voice calling, ‘Virgilius!
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	3	det	_	_
3	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	walked	walk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	on	on	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	pitch	pitch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	darkness	darkness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
14	steadily	steadily	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	on	on	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
18	by	by	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	by	by	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	glimmer	glimmer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
25	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	light	light	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nmod	_	_
27	shot	shoot	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	26	acl	_	_
28	across	across	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
29	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	30	det	_	_
30	floor	floor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	34	punct	_	_
32	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	34	cc	_	_
33	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	34	nsubj	_	_
34	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
35	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	34	obj	_	_
37	calling	call	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	34	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
38	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	40	punct	_	_
39	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	40	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
40	Virgilius	Virgilius	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	37	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
41	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **walk on** | past | boy |  |  | pitch darkness | time | by a glimmer of light | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in darkness=Trajectory |
| 2 | **go** | past | boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **shoot** | participle |  | light *not said here* |  | the floor |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **hear** | past | boy | a voice |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **call** | gerund | a voice *not said here* |  | Virgilius |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent virgilius=Recipient |
| 6 | **glimmer** |  | light |  |  |  |  |  | nom glimmer «event intransitive»: of=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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