---
title: He cared for nothing but the music, and nodded his head as he declar… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He cared for nothing but the music, and nodded his head as he declared, ‘That’s something like playing and singing. Who acts: player. 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 35

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He cared for nothing but the music, and nodded his head as he declared, ‘That’s something like playing and singing.

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**Who acts:** player · **What happens:** care, nod, declare, play, sing · **To what, where:** head

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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 (player), 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:pg641:8:35
# text = He cared for nothing but the music, and nodded his head as he declared, ‘That’s something like playing and singing.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	cared	care	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	for	for	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	2	obl	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	music	music	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	nodded	nod	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	declared	declare	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
20	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	19	obj	_	_
21	like	like	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
22	playing	play	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	20	acl	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	22	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **care** | past | player |  |  |  |  | for nothing | vn caring-75.2-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent for nothing=Theme |
| 2 | **nod** | past | player *not said here* | player's head |  |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent head=Patient |
| 3 | **declare** *speech: other* | past | player |  |  |  |  |  | vn declare-29.4-1-1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **play** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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