---
title: ‘Nonsense; of course he is our uncle,’ answered they. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Nonsense; of course he is our uncle,’ answered they. Who acts: man, uncle. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Halfman, sentence 21

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‘Nonsense; of course he is our uncle,’ answered they.

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**Who acts:** man, uncle · **What happens:** be, answer · **To what, where:** Nonsense, meat

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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 (man, uncle), 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:pg641:41:21
# text = ‘Nonsense; of course he is our uncle,’ answered they.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Nonsense	nonsense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
5	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	fixed	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
7	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
8	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	uncle	uncle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
12	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | man |  |  |  |  | of our uncle | tree rules |
| 2 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | our uncle | Nonsense | meat |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent they=Eventuality |

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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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