---
title: An instance in my _Indian Fairy Tales_, "Why the Fish Laughed" (No.… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: An instance in my _Indian Fairy Tales_, "Why the Fish Laughed" (No. xxiv.). Who acts: my. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, LIV. Gobborn Seer, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, LIV. Gobborn Seer, sentence 8

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An instance in my \_Indian Fairy Tales\_, "Why the Fish Laughed" (No. xxiv.).

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**Who acts:** my · **What happens:** tell · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, LIV. Gobborn Seer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (my), 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:pg14241:45:8
# text = An instance in my _Indian Fairy Tales_, "Why the Fish Laughed" (No. xxiv.).
1	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	instance	instance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
3	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
4	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
5	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	Indian	Indian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	Fairy	fairy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	Tales	tale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
11	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	Fish	Fish	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	Laughed	Laughed	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
17	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	No.	no.	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	xxiv	xxiv	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom tale «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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