---
title: ‘Because,’ replied Halfman, ‘the baby is not really ours, but belong… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Because,’ replied Halfman, ‘the baby is not really ours, but belongs to an ogress.’ Who acts: baby. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman, 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/pg641/41/166/)

<!-- 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 Halfman](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/) / 166

# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Halfman, sentence 166

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘Because,’ replied Halfman, ‘the baby is not really ours, but belongs to an ogress.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** baby · **What happens:** reply, not be, belong · **To what, where:** Halfman, ours

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (baby), 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:pg641:41:166
# text = ‘Because,’ replied Halfman, ‘the baby is not really ours, but belongs to an ogress.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	replied	reply	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	,	_	14	punct	_	_
8	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	baby	baby	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
13	really	really	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	ours	our	PRON	PRP	Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	belongs	belong	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	ogress	ogress	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past |  | Halfman |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent halfman=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **is a** | present | the baby | ours |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **belong** | present |  |  |  |  |  | to a ogress | vn attend-107.4-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 165](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/165/)
- next →: [sentence 167](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/167/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Halfman](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/41/)