---
title: So off he went and told the Coo, but she wouldn't hold still, so bac… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: So off he went and told the Coo, but she wouldn't hold still, so back he went and told his mother. Who acts: Coo, lady. 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/pg14241/30/150/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 16, sentence 150

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So off he went and told the Coo, but she wouldn't hold still, so back he went and told his mother.

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**Who acts:** Coo, lady · **What happens:** go, tell, not hold · **To what, where:** Coo, mother · **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 (Coo, lady), 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:pg14241:30:150
# text = So off he went and told the Coo, but she wouldn't hold still, so back he went and told his mother.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	off	off	ADP	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Coo	coo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
12	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	n't	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
14	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
15	still	still	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	so	so	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	back	back	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
19	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	conj	_	_
23	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	24	nmod:poss	_	_
24	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | Coo |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | Coo *not said here* |  | the Coo |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent coo=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **not** **hold** | would | lady |  |  |  | still |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **go** | past | Coo |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | Coo *not said here* |  | Coo's mother |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent mother=Recipient |

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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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