---
title: There wasn't a barn or a corn-rick, a store-room or a cupboard, but… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There wasn't a barn or a corn-rick, a store-room or a cupboard, but they ate their way into it. Who acts: barn. 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/pg14241/15/5/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 1, sentence 5

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There wasn't a barn or a corn-rick, a store-room or a cupboard, but they ate their way into it.

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**Who acts:** barn · **What happens:** not be, eat · **To what, where:** way

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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 (barn), 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:pg14241:15:5
# text = There wasn't a barn or a corn-rick, a store-room or a cupboard, but they ate their way into it.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	2	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	barn	barn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
8	corn	corn	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	rick	rick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	store	store	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	room	room	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
16	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	cupboard	cupboard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
21	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	ate	eat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
23	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	_
25	into	into	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	obl	_	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 | **not** **be** | past | a barn or a corn rick and a store room or a cupboard |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **eat** | past | barn | barn's way |  | way |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Patient |

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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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