---
title: ‘Oh, take heart,’ replied the hawk; ‘things are never so bad but wha… — The Lilac Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Oh, take heart,’ replied the hawk; ‘things are never so bad but what they might be worse. Who acts: you, things. A sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9, 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/pg3454/9/83/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/) / [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/9/) / 83

# The Lilac Fairy Book, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 83

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Oh, take heart,’ replied the hawk; ‘things are never so bad but what they might be worse.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you, things · **What happens:** take, reply, not be, be · **To what, where:** heart, hawk

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Lilac Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, things), 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:pg3454:9:83
# text = ‘Oh, take heart,’ replied the hawk; ‘things are never so bad but what they might be worse.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	take	take	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
8	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	hawk	hawk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
12	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
14	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
15	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
16	so	so	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	_
17	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	advcl	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
19	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	23	nsubj	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
22	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	cop	_	_
23	worse	bad	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | imperative | you *not said here* | heart |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent heart=Theme |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | you *not said here* | the hawk |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent hawk=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **is** | present | things |  |  |  |  | bad *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **is** | might |  |  |  |  |  | bad *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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:** «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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 82](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/9/82/)
- next →: [sentence 84](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/9/84/)
- ↑ back to [The Lilac Fairy Book, part 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3454/9/)