---
title: By-and-by the boy grew big and tall, and seemed to lead a happy life… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: By-and-by the boy grew big and tall, and seemed to lead a happy life in the house of his foster parents. Who acts: boy. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 1, sentence 28

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By-and-by the boy grew big and tall, and seemed to lead a happy life in the house of his foster parents.

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**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** grow, seem, lead · **To what, where:** happy life, house

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy), 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:pg641:9:28
# text = By-and-by the boy grew big and tall, and seemed to lead a happy life in the house of his foster parents.
1	By	by	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	by	by	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	grew	grow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	_
9	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	xcomp	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	tall	tall	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	lead	lead	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	happy	happy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	life	life	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
24	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
25	foster	foster	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	compound	_	_
26	parents	parent	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **grow** | past | the boy |  |  |  |  | big *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **seem** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 3 | **lead** | to-infinitive |  | a happy life |  | the house of boy's foster parents |  |  | vn accompany-51.7 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent life=Theme in house=Destination |

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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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