---
title: "No, no," said the king, "cannot one of the men do the errand?" — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "No, no," said the king, "cannot one of the men do the errand?" Who acts: king, one. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 6, sentence 66

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"No, no," said the king, "cannot one of the men do the errand?"

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**Who acts:** king, one · **What happens:** say, do · **To what, where:** errand · **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 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, one), 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:pg14241:20:66
# text = "No, no," said the king, "cannot one of the men do the errand?"
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	No	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	no	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	2	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nsubj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nmod	_	_
18	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	errand	errand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the king |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | can | one of the men | the errand |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent errand=Eventuality |

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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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