---
title: He gave a ball to each lass, and she was to keep it, and if she lost… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He gave a ball to each lass, and she was to keep it, and if she lost it, she was to be hanged. Who acts: man, bonny. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/15/132/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 1, sentence 132

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He gave a ball to each lass, and she was to keep it, and if she lost it, she was to be hanged.

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**Who acts:** man, bonny · **What happens:** give, be, lose, hange · **To what, where:** ball, lass, bonny

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, bonny), 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:pg14241:15:132
# text = He gave a ball to each lass, and she was to keep it, and if she lost it, she was to be hanged.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	7	det	_	_
7	lass	lass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
17	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	lost	lose	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	advcl	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
22	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
23	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	26	aux:pass	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	26	mark	_	_
25	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	aux:pass	_	_
26	hanged	hange	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | past | man | a ball | each lass |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent ball=Theme to lass=Recipient |
| 2 | **is** | past | bonny |  |  |  |  | keep *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **lose** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | bonny | Ball |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |
| 4 | **hange** | past · passive |  | bonny |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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:** «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 14241 (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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