---
title: Hans did not answer, but rode on steadily, though every now and then… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Hans did not answer, but rode on steadily, though every now and then he cast a glance over his shoulder. Who acts: Hans, minister. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs, 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/pg641/33/72/)

<!-- 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 Headless Dwarfs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/33/) / 72

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Headless Dwarfs, sentence 72

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Hans did not answer, but rode on steadily, though every now and then he cast a glance over his shoulder.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Hans, minister · **What happens:** not answer, ride on, cast · **To what, where:** glance, shoulder · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Hans, minister), 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:pg641:33:72
# text = Hans did not answer, but rode on steadily, though every now and then he cast a glance over his shoulder.
1	Hans	han	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	answer	answer	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	rode	ride	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	RP	_	7	compound:prt	_	_
9	steadily	steadily	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
11	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
12	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	13	det	_	_
13	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	advmod	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	17	advmod	_	_
16	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
17	cast	cast	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	glance	glance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	_
20	over	over	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
22	shoulder	shoulder	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **answer** *speech: assert* | past · do-support | Hans |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **ride on** | past |  |  |  |  |  | steadily *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **cast** | past | minister | a glance |  | minister's shoulder | now; then |  | vn throw-17.1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent glance=Theme over shoulder=Destination |

<!-- .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 71](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/33/71/)
- next →: [sentence 73](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/33/73/)
- ↑ back to [The Headless Dwarfs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/33/)