---
title: The emperor, desiring nothing so much as the safety of his subjects,… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The emperor, desiring nothing so much as the safety of his subjects, took counsel with Virgilius how this violence could be put down. Who acts: emperor. 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 89

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The emperor, desiring nothing so much as the safety of his subjects, took counsel with Virgilius how this violence could be put down.

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**Who acts:** emperor · **What happens:** desire, take, put down · **To what, where:** nothing, counsel, violence

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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 (emperor), 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:pg641:43:89
# text = The emperor, desiring nothing so much as the safety of his subjects, took counsel with Virgilius how this violence could be put down.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	emperor	emperor	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	desiring	desire	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	acl	_	_
5	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	obj	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	much	much	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
8	as	as	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	safety	safety	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	subjects	subject	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
15	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	counsel	counsel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	Virgilius	Virgilius	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
19	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	24	advmod	_	_
20	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	21	det	_	_
21	violence	violence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj:pass	_	_
22	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
23	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	24	aux:pass	_	_
24	put	put	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	advcl	_	_
25	down	down	ADP	RP	_	24	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **desire** | gerund | the emperor *not said here* | nothing |  |  |  | as the safety of emperor's subjects | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot nothing=Theme |
| 2 | **take** | past | the emperor | counsel |  |  |  | with Virgilius | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent counsel=Theme |
| 3 | **put down** | could · passive |  | this violence |  |  |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: subject=Goal |

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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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