---
title: "Ah!" said the girl, "I should be spinning too, but it's all to no p… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: "Ah!" said the girl, "I should be spinning too, but it's all to no purpose. Who acts: girl, thread. 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/pg14241/31/9/)

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# More English Fairy Tales, More English Fairy Tales, part 17, sentence 9

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"Ah!" said the girl, "I should be spinning too, but it's all to no purpose.

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**Who acts:** girl, thread · **What happens:** say, spin, be · **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 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (girl, thread), 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:pg14241:31:9
# text = "Ah!" said the girl, "I should be spinning too, but it's all to no purpose.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	aux	_	_
13	spinning	spin	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
14	too	too	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
19	all	all	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	_
20	to	to	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	22	det	_	_
22	purpose	purpose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the girl |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **spin** *in a quote* | should · progressive | the girl *= girl* |  |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | thread |  |  |  |  | to no purpose; all *property* | 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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