---
title: I have attempted an impossibility, I fear, in trying to anglicise, b… — More English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: I have attempted an impossibility, I fear, in trying to anglicise, but the fun of the original tempted me. Who acts: I, fun. A sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, LVII. the Wee Bannock, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# More English Fairy Tales, LVII. the Wee Bannock, sentence 3

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I have attempted an impossibility, I fear, in trying to anglicise, but the fun of the original tempted me.

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**Who acts:** I, fun · **What happens:** attempt, fear, try, anglicise, tempt · **To what, where:** impossibility, me

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This is a sentence of «More English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, LVII. the Wee Bannock. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, fun), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg14241:2006`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg14241:48:3
# text = I have attempted an impossibility, I fear, in trying to anglicise, but the fun of the original tempted me.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	attempted	attempt	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	impossibility	impossibility	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	fear	fear	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
10	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
11	trying	try	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	anglicise	anglicise	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
15	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	fun	fun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	original	original	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	nmod	_	_
21	tempted	tempt	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
22	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **attempt** | present · perfect | I | a impossibility |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent impossibility=Eventuality |
| 2 | **fear** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **try** | gerund | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **anglicise** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **tempt** | past | the fun of the original |  | me |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |

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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:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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