---
title: Tom touched his hat, and began to think what he ought to say. " — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Tom touched his hat, and began to think what he ought to say. " Who acts: Tom. 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 clause.
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 3, sentence 60

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Tom touched his hat, and began to think what he ought to say. "

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**Who acts:** Tom · **What happens:** touch, begin, think, say · **To what, where:** hat · **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 (Tom), 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:pg14241:17:60
# text = Tom touched his hat, and began to think what he ought to say. "
1	Tom	Tom	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	touched	touch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	hat	hat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	think	think	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	obj	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **touch** | past | Tom | Tom's hat |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme hat=Co-Theme |
| 2 | **begin** | past | Tom *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | to-infinitive | Tom *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | ought | Tom |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |

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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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