---
title: "Nothing _can_ be easier," said they: so I went on my way. — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Nothing _can_ be easier," said they: so I went on my way. Who acts: Nothing, I., I. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 4, 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/pg14241/18/79/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 4, sentence 79

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"Nothing \_can\_ be easier," said they: so I went on my way.

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**Who acts:** Nothing, I., I · **What happens:** be, say, go · **To what, where:** way · **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 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nothing, I., I), 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:pg14241:18:79
# text = "Nothing _can_ be easier," said they: so I went on my way.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	7	nsubj	_	_
3	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	7	punct	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
7	easier	easy	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
13	so	so	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | can | Nothing |  |  |  |  | easy *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | I. |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **go** | past | I |  |  | my way |  |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on way=Location |

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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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