---
title: "It was carved only an hour ago by a little boy in the kitchen," sai… — Fifty Famous Stories Retold · tree and pragmatics
description: "It was carved only an hour ago by a little boy in the kitchen," said the servant. Who acts: little boy, servant. A sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Antonio Canova., 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/pg18442/54/57/)

<!-- 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/) / [Fifty Famous Stories Retold](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/) / [Antonio Canova.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/) / 57

# Fifty Famous Stories Retold, Antonio Canova., sentence 57

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
"It was carved only an hour ago by a little boy in the kitchen," said the servant.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** little boy, servant · **What happens:** carve, say · **To what, where:** statue · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Antonio Canova.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little boy, servant), 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:pg18442:54:57
# text = "It was carved only an hour ago by a little boy in the kitchen," said the servant.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	carved	carve	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	ccomp	_	_
5	only	only	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl:unmarked	_	_
8	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
9	by	by	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	kitchen	kitchen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	18	punct	_	_
18	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	servant	servant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **carve** *in a quote* | past · passive | a little boy in the kitchen | statue |  |  |  | ago *property* | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the servant |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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:** «Fifty Famous Stories Retold» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 18442 (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 56](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/56/)
- next →: [sentence 58](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/58/)
- ↑ back to [Antonio Canova.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg18442/54/)