---
title: But the boy was so absorbed in his flute that he noticed nothing til… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But the boy was so absorbed in his flute that he noticed nothing till half the flock were on the other side. Who acts: boy, nothing. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mogarzea and His Son, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/36/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [Mogarzea and His Son](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/) / 36

# The Violet Fairy Book, Mogarzea and His Son, sentence 36

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the boy was so absorbed in his flute that he noticed nothing till half the flock were on the other side.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** boy, nothing · **What happens:** absorb, notice, be · **To what, where:** boy, flute, other side · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mogarzea and His Son. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, nothing), 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:pg641:44:36
# text = But the boy was so absorbed in his flute that he noticed nothing till half the flock were on the other side.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux:pass	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	absorbed	absorb	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	flute	flute	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	noticed	notice	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	22	nsubj	_	_
14	till	till	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	half	half	DET	PDT	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac|PronType=Ind	17	det:predet	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	flock	flock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
18	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
19	on	on	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **absorb** | past · passive |  | the boy |  | boy's flute |  |  | vn absorb-39.8 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme |
| 2 | **notice** | past | boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is** | past | nothing |  |  | the other side |  |  | 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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/35/)
- next →: [sentence 37](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/37/)
- ↑ back to [Mogarzea and His Son](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/)