---
title: ‘It is not so very little after all,’ said the Bull. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘It is not so very little after all,’ said the Bull. Who acts: It. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Kari Woodengown, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, Kari Woodengown, part 2, sentence 1

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‘It is not so very little after all,’ said the Bull.

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**Who acts:** It · **What happens:** not be, say · **To what, where:** Bull · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Kari Woodengown, 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 (It), 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:pg540:30:1
# text = ‘It is not so very little after all,’ said the Bull.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
5	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
6	very	very	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	ccomp	_	_
8	after	after	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	Bull	bull	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** | present | It |  |  |  | after all | little *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  | the Bull |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent bull=Topic |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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