---
title: Mother says I'll ne'er be wiser all my born days; but folks tell us… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Mother says I'll ne'er be wiser all my born days; but folks tell us thou canst do everything. Who acts: Mother, I, folks, thou. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 8, sentence 20

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Mother says I'll ne'er be wiser all my born days; but folks tell us thou canst do everything.

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**Who acts:** Mother, I, folks, thou · **What happens:** say, bear, be, tell, do · **To what, where:** wiser born days, us, everything · **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 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Mother, I, folks, thou), 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:pg14241:22:20
# text = Mother says I'll ne'er be wiser all my born days; but folks tell us thou canst do everything.
1	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	'll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
5	ne'er	ne'er	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
6	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	cop	_	_
7	wiser	wise	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	11	amod	_	_
8	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	11	det:predet	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	amod	_	_
11	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	folks	folk	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
15	tell	tell	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
16	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	iobj	_	_
17	thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	19	nsubj	_	_
18	canst	can	AUX	MD	Style=Arch|VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
19	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	ccomp	_	_
20	everything	everything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Tot	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **bear** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **is a** | future | I | my wiser born days |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present | folks |  | us |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent we=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 5 | **do** | can | thou | everything |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent everything=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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