---
title: So he went a-courting a fine maid, and he said to her: "Will you mar… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: So he went a-courting a fine maid, and he said to her: "Will you marry me?" Who acts: farmer, maid. 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/pg14241/15/66/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 1, sentence 66

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So he went a-courting a fine maid, and he said to her: "Will you marry me?"

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**Who acts:** farmer, maid · **What happens:** go, court, say, marry · **To what, where:** fine maid, maid, farmer · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (farmer, maid), 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:pg14241:15:66
# text = So he went a-courting a fine maid, and he said to her: "Will you marry me?"
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	courting	court	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	maid	maid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
17	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	Will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
21	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	20	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | farmer |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **court** | gerund | farmer *not said here* | a fine maid |  |  |  |  | vn marry-36.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent maid=Co-Agent |
| 3 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | farmer |  | maid |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to she=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 4 | **marry** *in a quote* | future | maid | farmer |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=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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