--- title: ‘Well,’ thought Halfman, ‘my conscience is clear anyway, for it is q… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics description: ‘Well,’ thought Halfman, ‘my conscience is clear anyway, for it is quite plain he coveted my wife, and that is why he tried to drown me.’ Who acts: conscience, Halfman, that. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ev --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/138/) [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 Halfman](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/) / 138 # The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Halfman, sentence 138 ‘Well,’ thought Halfman, ‘my conscience is clear anyway, for it is quite plain he coveted my wife, and that is why he tried to drown me.’ **Who acts:** conscience, Halfman, that · **What happens:** think, be, covet, try, drown · **To what, where:** Halfman, wife, me This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (conscience, Halfman, that), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. **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:pg641:41:138 # text = ‘Well,’ thought Halfman, ‘my conscience is clear anyway, for it is quite plain he coveted my wife, and that is why he tried to drown me.’ 1 ‘ ' PUNCT `` _ 5 punct _ SpaceAfter=No 2 Well well INTJ UH _ 5 discourse _ SpaceAfter=No 3 , , PUNCT , _ 2 punct _ SpaceAfter=No 4 ’ ' PUNCT '' _ 2 punct _ _ 5 thought think VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 0 root _ _ 6 Halfman Halfman PROPN NNP Number=Sing 5 obj _ SpaceAfter=No 7 , , PUNCT , _ 12 punct _ _ 8 ‘ ' PUNCT `` _ 12 punct _ SpaceAfter=No 9 my my PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 10 nmod:poss _ _ 10 conscience conscience NOUN NN Number=Sing 12 nsubj _ _ 11 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 12 cop _ _ 12 clear clear ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 5 conj _ _ 13 anyway anyway ADV RB _ 12 advmod _ SpaceAfter=No 14 , , PUNCT , _ 19 punct _ _ 15 for for ADP IN _ 19 case _ _ 16 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 19 nsubj _ _ 17 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 19 cop _ _ 18 quite quite ADV RB _ 19 advmod _ _ 19 plain plain NOUN NN Number=Sing 12 obl _ _ 20 he he PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 21 nsubj _ _ 21 coveted covet VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 19 acl:relcl _ _ 22 my my PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 23 nmod:poss _ _ 23 wife wife NOUN NN Number=Sing 21 obj _ SpaceAfter=No 24 , , PUNCT , _ 28 punct _ _ 25 and and CCONJ CC _ 28 cc _ _ 26 that that PRON DT Number=Sing|PronType=Dem 28 nsubj _ _ 27 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 28 cop _ _ 28 why why ADV WRB PronType=Int 30 advmod _ _ 29 he he PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 30 nsubj _ _ 30 tried try VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 5 advcl _ _ 31 to to PART TO _ 32 mark _ _ 32 drown drown VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 30 xcomp _ _ 33 me I PRON PRP Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs 32 obj _ SpaceAfter=No 34 . . PUNCT . _ 5 punct _ SpaceAfter=No 35 ’ ' PUNCT '' _ 5 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | | Halfman | | | | | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot halfman=Theme | | 2 | **is** | present | my conscience | | | | | anyway, clear *property* | tree rules | | 3 | **is** | present | conscience | | | | | for plain | tree rules | | 4 | **covet** | past | Halfman | my wife | | | | | vn want-32.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot wife=Theme | | 5 | **is** | present | that | | | | | why *property* | tree rules | | 6 | **try** | past | Halfman | | | | | | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | | 7 | **drown** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Halfman *not said here* | me | | | | | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Patient | 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. **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. - ← previous: [sentence 137](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/137/) - next →: [sentence 139](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/139/) - ↑ back to [The Story of Halfman](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/)