---
title: It must be Sally Bratton's child," he thought to himself; "she was a… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It must be Sally Bratton's child," he thought to himself; "she was always a flighty thing, and never looked after it. Who acts: creature, lad, child. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/17/44/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 3, sentence 44

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It must be Sally Bratton's child," he thought to himself; "she was always a flighty thing, and never looked after it.

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**Who acts:** creature, lad, child · **What happens:** be, think, not look · **To what, where:** child, lad, flighty thing · **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 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (creature, lad, child), 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:pg14241:17:44
# text = It must be Sally Bratton's child," he thought to himself; "she was always a flighty thing, and never looked after it.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
2	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
4	Sally	Sally	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nmod:poss	_	_
5	Bratton	Bratton	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	's	's	PART	POS	_	4	case	_	_
7	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	parataxis	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
15	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	21	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	cop	_	_
18	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	21	advmod	_	_
19	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	flighty	flighty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
24	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
25	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	parataxis	_	_
26	after	after	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
27	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	25	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | must | creature | Sally's child |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* *in a quote* | past | lad |  | lad |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | past | child | a flighty thing |  |  |  | always *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **look** | past |  |  |  |  | after creature |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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