---
title: "Where be they?" says he, looking about and feeling in his pockets. — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Where be they?" says he, looking about and feeling in his pockets. Who acts: brains, M'appen. 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/pg14241/26/103/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 12, sentence 103

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"Where be they?" says he, looking about and feeling in his pockets.

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**Who acts:** brains, M'appen · **What happens:** be, say, look, feel · **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 (brains, M'appen), 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:pg14241:26:103
# text = "Where be they?" says he, looking about and feeling in his pockets.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	7	ccomp	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	cop	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
7	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	ccomp	_	_
11	about	about	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	feeling	feel	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	conj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	pockets	pocket	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | infinitive | brains *= brain* |  |  |  |  | where *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: ask* | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **look** | gerund | M'appen |  |  |  |  | about *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 4 | **feel** | gerund | M'appen *not said here* |  |  |  |  | in M'appen's pockets | vn seem-109-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Theme in pocket=Attribute |

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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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