---
title: "Nasty, lying thing," said the step-sister, "never mind what it says." — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Nasty, lying thing," said the step-sister, "never mind what it says." Who acts: step sister, thing. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 15, 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/pg14241/29/3/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 15, sentence 3

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"Nasty, lying thing," said the step-sister, "never mind what it says."

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**Who acts:** step sister, thing · **What happens:** lie, say, not mind · **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 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (step sister, thing), 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:pg14241:29:3
# text = "Nasty, lying thing," said the step-sister, "never mind what it says."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Nasty	nasty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	amod	_	_
5	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
10	step	step	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	16	advmod	_	_
16	mind	mind	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
17	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	19	obj	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lie** *in a quote* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the step sister |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **mind** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn care-88.1 «NP V whether/if S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | thing |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |

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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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