---
title: His heart sank within him, but he could not refuse, and so lose his… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: His heart sank within him, but he could not refuse, and so lose his great name. Who acts: heart, John. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 7, 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/pg14241/21/140/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 7, sentence 140

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His heart sank within him, but he could not refuse, and so lose his great name.

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**Who acts:** heart, John · **What happens:** sink, not refuse, lose, name · **To what, where:** great name

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (heart, John), 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:pg14241:21:140
# text = His heart sank within him, but he could not refuse, and so lose his great name.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	sank	sink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	within	within	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	refuse	refuse	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	so	so	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	lose	lose	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	conj	_	_
16	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
17	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sink** | past | John's heart |  |  |  |  | within John | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **not** **refuse** | could | heart |  |  |  |  |  | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **lose** | infinitive | heart *not said here* | John's great name |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent name=Eventuality |
| 4 | **name** |  | John |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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