---
title: He vowed he was lonely without a wife, and had long been in search o… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He vowed he was lonely without a wife, and had long been in search of one who was a good spinner. Who acts: laird, one. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 17, 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/pg14241/31/34/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 17, sentence 34

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He vowed he was lonely without a wife, and had long been in search of one who was a good spinner.

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**Who acts:** laird, one · **What happens:** vow, be, have · **To what, where:** search

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (laird, one), 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:pg14241:31:34
# text = He vowed he was lonely without a wife, and had long been in search of one who was a good spinner.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	vowed	vow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	lonely	lonely	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	ccomp	_	_
6	without	without	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	15	advmod	_	_
13	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	15	cop	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	search	search	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
17	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	22	nsubj	_	_
18	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	22	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
20	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	spinner	spinner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **vow** | past | laird |  |  |  |  | without a wife | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | laird |  |  |  |  | lonely *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **have** | past | laird *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | participle |  |  |  | search |  | long *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **is** | past | one |  |  |  |  | of a good spinner | 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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