---
title: ‘Oh, dear uncle, we were very nearly not coming at all!’ replied they. — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Oh, dear uncle, we were very nearly not coming at all!’ replied they. Who acts: dear uncle, 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 45

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‘Oh, dear uncle, we were very nearly not coming at all!’ replied they.

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**Who acts:** dear uncle, uncle · **What happens:** not come, reply · **To what, where:** all · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (dear uncle, 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:pg641:41:45
# text = ‘Oh, dear uncle, we were very nearly not coming at all!’ replied they.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	uncle	uncle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
9	very	very	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	coming	come	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	17	ccomp	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
17	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **come** | past · progressive | dear uncle |  |  | all |  | nearly *property* | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at all=Location |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | uncle |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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