---
title: Why there wasn't a ratcatcher from John o' Groat's house to the Land… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Why there wasn't a ratcatcher from John o' Groat's house to the Land's End that hadn't tried his luck. Who acts: ratcatcher. 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/pg14241/15/17/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 1, sentence 17

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Why there wasn't a ratcatcher from John o' Groat's house to the Land's End that hadn't tried his luck.

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**Who acts:** ratcatcher · **What happens:** be, not try · **To what, where:** End

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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 (ratcatcher), 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:pg14241:15:17
# text = Why there wasn't a ratcatcher from John o' Groat's house to the Land's End that hadn't tried his luck.
1	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	0	root	_	_
2	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	ratcatcher	ratcatcher	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
7	from	from	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	John	John	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
9	o	of	ADP	IN	Abbr=Yes	13	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	_
11	Groat	Groat	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	's	's	PART	POS	_	11	case	_	_
13	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	Land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	's	's	PART	POS	_	16	case	_	_
18	End	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	_
19	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	22	nsubj:pass	_	_
20	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	22	advmod	_	_
22	tried	try	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	acl:relcl	_	_
23	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	luck	luck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a ratcatcher from John of Groat's house to the Land's End |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **try** | past · perfect · passive |  | the Land's End |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Experiencer luck=Result |

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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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