---
title: Which is the prior, folk-novel or tale, it would be hard to say. — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Which is the prior, folk-novel or tale, it would be hard to say. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, LVI. Tattercoats, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, LVI. Tattercoats, sentence 11

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Which is the prior, folk-novel or tale, it would be hard to say.

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**What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** prior folk novel · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, LVI. Tattercoats. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg14241:47:11
# text = Which is the prior, folk-novel or tale, it would be hard to say.
1	Which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
4	prior	prior	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	folk	folk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	novel	novel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	tale	tale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	expl	_	_
13	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	cop	_	_
15	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	say	say	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present |  | the prior folk novel or tale |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | would |  |  |  |  |  | hard *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=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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