---
title: ‘Very good, my son,’ replied the minister, ‘you shall have the chanc… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Very good, my son,’ replied the minister, ‘you shall have the chance of proving your courage this very night. Who acts: you, chance. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Headless Dwarfs, sentence 10

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‘Very good, my son,’ replied the minister, ‘you shall have the chance of proving your courage this very night.

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**Who acts:** you, chance · **What happens:** reply, have, prove · **To what, where:** minister, chance, courage

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, chance), 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:pg641:33:10
# text = ‘Very good, my son,’ replied the minister, ‘you shall have the chance of proving your courage this very night.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Very	very	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	vocative	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
9	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	minister	minister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	chance	chance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
20	proving	prove	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	18	acl	_	_
21	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	courage	courage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	_
23	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	25	det	_	_
24	very	very	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
25	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past |  | the minister |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent minister=Topic |
| 2 | **have** | shall | you | the chance |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chance=Patient |
| 3 | **prove** | gerund | the chance *not said here* | your courage |  |  | night |  | vn deduce-97.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent courage=Theme |

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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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