---
title: ‘Very well, cinders be it,’ the old woman called after him, but he p… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Very well, cinders be it,’ the old woman called after him, but he pretended not to hear her. Who acts: king. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, sentence 30

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‘Very well, cinders be it,’ the old woman called after him, but he pretended not to hear her.

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** be, call, pretend, not hear · **To what, where:** basket, old woman, woman · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king), 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:pg641:24:30
# text = ‘Very well, cinders be it,’ the old woman called after him, but he pretended not to hear her.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Very	very	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	cinders	cinder	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
7	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	appos	_	_
13	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	acl	_	_
14	after	after	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	pretended	pretend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
20	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	22	mark	_	_
22	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	xcomp	_	_
23	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | infinitive |  | basket |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **call** | participle |  | the old woman *not said here* |  |  | after king |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **pretend** | past | king |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **hear** | to-infinitive | king *not said here* | woman |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer she=Stimulus |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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