---
title: ‘Very well,’ answered the boy, and he went down, and he scraped and… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Very well,’ answered the boy, and he went down, and he scraped and scraped till there was not so much honey left as would cover the point of a needle. Who acts: boy. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Hassebu, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/30/29/)

<!-- 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 Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [The Story of Hassebu](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/30/) / 29

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Hassebu, sentence 29

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Very well,’ answered the boy, and he went down, and he scraped and scraped till there was not so much honey left as would cover the point of a needle.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** answer, go down, scrape, be, leave, cover · **To what, where:** boy, much honey, point, needle

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Hassebu. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy), 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:pg641:30:29
# text = ‘Very well,’ answered the boy, and he went down, and he scraped and scraped till there was not so much honey left as would cover the point of a needle.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Very	very	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
6	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	boy	boy	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	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
13	down	down	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	scraped	scrape	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	parataxis	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
19	scraped	scrape	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	conj	_	_
20	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
21	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	22	expl	_	_
22	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	advcl	_	_
23	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
24	so	so	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	honey	honey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	_
27	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	26	acl	_	_
28	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	30	mark	_	_
29	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	30	aux	_	_
30	cover	cover	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	27	advcl	_	_
31	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	32	det	_	_
32	point	point	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obj	_	_
33	of	of	ADP	IN	_	35	case	_	_
34	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	35	det	_	_
35	needle	needle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	32	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
36	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past |  |  | the boy |  |  | well *property* | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent boy=Eventuality |
| 2 | **go down** | past | boy |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **scrape** | past | boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient |
| 4 | **scrape** | past | boy *not said here* | much honey |  |  |  |  | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent honey=Patient |
| 5 | **be** | past | boy *not said here* |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 6 | **leave** | participle |  | much honey *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 7 | **cover** | would |  | the point of a needle |  |  |  |  | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme point=Destination |
| 8 | **point** |  |  | a needle |  |  |  |  | nom point «cognition transitive»: of=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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/30/28/)
- next →: [sentence 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/30/30/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Hassebu](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/30/)