---
title: A tale told in Durham or Cumberland in a dialect which only Dr. Murr… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: A tale told in Durham or Cumberland in a dialect which only Dr. Murray could distinguish from Lowland Scotch, would on all hands be allowed to be "English." Who acts: Murray. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Ætat. XIII, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every c
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, Ætat. XIII, sentence 25

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A tale told in Durham or Cumberland in a dialect which only Dr. Murray could distinguish from Lowland Scotch, would on all hands be allowed to be "English."

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**Who acts:** Murray · **What happens:** tell, distinguish, allow, be · **To what, where:** tale, dialect, hands, English · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Ætat. XIII. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Murray), 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:pg14241:4:25
# text = A tale told in Durham or Cumberland in a dialect which only Dr. Murray could distinguish from Lowland Scotch, would on all hands be allowed to be "English."
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	tale	tale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	Durham	Durham	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl:agent	_	_
6	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	Cumberland	Cumberland	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	dialect	dialect	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
11	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	obj	_	_
12	only	only	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	Dr.	Dr.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nmod:desc	_	_
14	Murray	Murray	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
15	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	distinguish	distinguish	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl:relcl	_	_
17	from	from	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	Lowland	Lowland	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	_
19	Scotch	Scotch	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
21	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
22	on	on	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	24	det	_	_
24	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	26	obl	_	_
25	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	aux:pass	_	_
26	allowed	allow	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
27	to	to	PART	TO	_	30	mark	_	_
28	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	30	cop	_	_
29	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	30	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	English	English	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	26	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	26	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	26	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | participle |  | a tale *not said here* |  | a dialect |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **distinguish** | could | Murray  Dr. | a dialect |  |  |  | from Lowland | vn distinguish-23.5-1 «NP V NP.theme PP.co-theme»: agent=Agent which=Theme from lowland=Co-Theme |
| 3 | **allow** | would · passive |  | a tale |  | all hands |  |  | vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Beneficiary |
| 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | English |  |  |  |  | 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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