---
title: No sooner had the heathen king heard this touching song sung by such… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: No sooner had the heathen king heard this touching song sung by such a lovely voice, than he had the singer brought before him. Who acts: heathen king, song, singer. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lute Player, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Lute Player, sentence 28

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No sooner had the heathen king heard this touching song sung by such a lovely voice, than he had the singer brought before him.

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**Who acts:** heathen king, song, singer · **What happens:** have, hear, sing, bring · **To what, where:** touching song

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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 (heathen king, song, singer), 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:pg641:8:28
# text = No sooner had the heathen king heard this touching song sung by such a lovely voice, than he had the singer brought before him.
1	No	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	2	det	_	_
2	sooner	soon	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	3	advmod	_	_
3	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	heathen	heathen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
8	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	det	_	_
9	touching	touching	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	sung	sing	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl	_	_
12	by	by	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
13	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	16	det:predet	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	lovely	lovely	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	than	than	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	singer	singer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nsubj	_	_
23	brought	bring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	ccomp	_	_
24	before	before	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
25	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past |  |  |  |  |  | soon *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **hear** | past | the heathen king | this touching song |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer song=Stimulus |
| 3 | **sing** *speech: express* | participle |  | this touching song *not said here* |  |  |  | by such lovely voice | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by voice=Location |
| 4 | **have** | past | song |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **bring** | past | the singer |  |  |  | before song |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent before he=Destination |

<!-- .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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