---
title: But no one can ever get this horse without first serving the old wom… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But no one can ever get this horse without first serving the old woman for three whole days. Who acts: one. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples, sentence 86

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But no one can ever get this horse without first serving the old woman for three whole days.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** one · **What happens:** get, serve · **To what, where:** horse, old woman

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (one), 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:pg641:7:86
# text = But no one can ever get this horse without first serving the old woman for three whole days.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	3	det	_	_
3	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	6	advmod	_	_
6	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	det	_	_
8	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	11	advmod	_	_
11	serving	serve	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
16	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nummod	_	_
17	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | can | no one | this horse |  |  | ever |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer horse=Stimulus |
| 2 | **serve** | gerund | no one *not said here* | the old woman |  |  | day | first *property* | vn masquerade-29.6-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent woman=Attribute |

<!-- .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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