---
title: Neither was the old grandmother anywhere to be seen. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Neither was the old grandmother anywhere to be seen. Who acts: Neither. 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 87

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Neither was the old grandmother anywhere to be seen.

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**Who acts:** Neither · **What happens:** be, see · **To what, where:** old grandmother

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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 (Neither), 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:pg641:9:87
# text = Neither was the old grandmother anywhere to be seen.
1	Neither	neither	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	5	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	grandmother	grandmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	anywhere	anywhere	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	5	advmod	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
8	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Neither | the old grandmother |  |  |  | anywhere *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **see** | to-infinitive · passive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V» |

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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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