---
title: “Very good,” replied the whale; and he took out one of his bones and… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Very good,” replied the whale; and he took out one of his bones and passed it to the tortoise. Who acts: whale. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2, sentence 58

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“Very good,” replied the whale; and he took out one of his bones and passed it to the tortoise.

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**Who acts:** whale · **What happens:** reply, take out, pass · **To what, where:** one, hardest, tortoise

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Story of Wali Dâd the Simple-Hearted, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (whale), 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:pg3282:35:58
# text = “Very good,” replied the whale; and he took out one of his bones and passed it to the tortoise.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Very	very	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
6	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	whale	whale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
13	out	out	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	obj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	bones	bone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nmod	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	passed	pass	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	tortoise	tortoise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | the whale |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **take out** | past | whale | one of whale's bones |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Theme |
| 3 | **pass** | past | whale *not said here* | hardest *= hard* | the tortoise |  |  |  | vn give-13.1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent it=Theme to tortoise=Recipient |

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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 Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (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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