---
title: "M'appen," says he then, "it may be a tadpole, missis." — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "M'appen," says he then, "it may be a tadpole, missis." Who acts: M'appen, ear. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 12, 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/pg14241/26/100/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 12, sentence 100

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"M'appen," says he then, "it may be a tadpole, missis."

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**Who acts:** M'appen, ear · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** tadpole · **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 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (M'appen, ear), 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:pg14241:26:100
# text = "M'appen," says he then, "it may be a tadpole, missis."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	M'appen	M'appen	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
11	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	cop	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	tadpole	tadpole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
16	missis	missis	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	14	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 | M'appen | tadpole |  |  | then |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | may | ear | a tadpole and missis |  |  |  |  | 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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