---
title: And before you could say Jack Robinson, there the goodman sat and hi… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And before you could say Jack Robinson, there the goodman sat and his nose was the longer for a noble link of black pudding. Who acts: you, goodman, nose. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of ever
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg14241/24/44/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 10, sentence 44

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And before you could say Jack Robinson, there the goodman sat and his nose was the longer for a noble link of black pudding.

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**Who acts:** you, goodman, nose · **What happens:** say, sit, be · **To what, where:** Jack · **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 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, goodman, nose), 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:pg14241:24:44
# text = And before you could say Jack Robinson, there the goodman sat and his nose was the longer for a noble link of black pudding.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
2	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
6	Jack	Jack	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
7	Robinson	Robinson	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
9	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	12	expl	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	goodman	goodman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	nose	nose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	cop	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	longer	long	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	12	conj	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	noble	noble	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	link	link	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	black	black	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	pudding	pudding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | could | you | Jack |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent jack=Topic |
| 2 | **sit** | past | the goodman |  |  | there |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | past | goodman's nose |  |  |  |  | for a noble link of black pudding; long *property* | tree rules |

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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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