---
title: Mother," says he, "Coo won't hold still, stick won't break, wee, wee… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Mother," says he, "Coo won't hold still, stick won't break, wee, wee Mannie can't beat big, big Coo." Who acts: Mother, Coo, wee Mannie. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 16, 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/pg14241/30/143/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 16, sentence 143

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Mother," says he, "Coo won't hold still, stick won't break, wee, wee Mannie can't beat big, big Coo."

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**Who acts:** Mother, Coo, wee Mannie · **What happens:** say, not hold, stick, not break, not beat · **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 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Mother, Coo, wee Mannie), 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:pg14241:30:143
# text = Mother," says he, "Coo won't hold still, stick won't break, wee, wee Mannie can't beat big, big Coo."
1	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
4	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	Coo	coo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
9	wo	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
12	still	still	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	stick	stick	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	conj	_	_
15	wo	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	17	advmod	_	_
17	break	break	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
19	wee	wee	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	wee	wee	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	Mannie	Mannie	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
23	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	25	advmod	_	_
25	beat	beat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	conj	_	_
26	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	29	punct	_	_
28	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	Coo	coo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | Mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **hold** | future | Coo |  |  |  | still |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **stick** | infinitive | Coo *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **break** | future | Coo *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 5 | **not** **beat** | can | wee Mannie |  |  |  |  | big *property* | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |

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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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