---
title: After she had played for some time she began to sing, and her voice… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: After she had played for some time she began to sing, and her voice was sweeter than the lark’s: Who acts: idea, voice. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lute Player, 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/pg641/8/20/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Lute Player](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/8/) / 20

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Lute Player, sentence 20

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
After she had played for some time she began to sing, and her voice was sweeter than the lark’s:

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** idea, voice · **What happens:** play, begin, sing, be · **To what, where:** time

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lute Player. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (idea, voice), 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:pg641:8:20
# text = After she had played for some time she began to sing, and her voice was sweeter than the lark’s:
1	After	after	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	played	play	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	7	det	_	_
7	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	acl:relcl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
17	sweeter	sweet	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	4	conj	_	_
18	than	than	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	lark	lark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’s	's	PART	POS	_	20	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **play** | past · perfect | idea |  |  |  | time |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **begin** | past | idea | some time *not said here* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **sing** *speech: express* | to-infinitive | idea *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **is** | past | idea's voice |  |  |  |  | than the lark; sweet *property* | 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 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/8/19/)
- next →: [sentence 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/8/21/)
- ↑ back to [The Lute Player](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/8/)