---
title: Then it took him but a short time to hew his way through the rock. — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Then it took him but a short time to hew his way through the rock. Who acts: it, short time. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/29/63/)

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# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 63

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then it took him but a short time to hew his way through the rock.

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**Who acts:** it, short time · **What happens:** take, hew · **To what, where:** son, way, rock

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This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (it, short time), 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:pg3454:29:63
# text = Then it took him but a short time to hew his way through the rock.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
2	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	hew	hew	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	through	through	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	rock	rock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | it |  | son |  | then |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument he=Destination |
| 2 | **hew** | to-infinitive | a short time | son's way |  | the rock |  |  | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Patient |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3454 (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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