---
title: The young man could not collect them, try as he would, and he though… — The Crimson Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The young man could not collect them, try as he would, and he thought to himself that this was the punishment for his laziness in refusing to look after his father’s one cow. Who acts: young man, youth, this, laziness. A sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, pa
---

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# The Crimson Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 26, sentence 76

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The young man could not collect them, try as he would, and he thought to himself that this was the punishment for his laziness in refusing to look after his father’s one cow.

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**Who acts:** young man, youth, this, laziness · **What happens:** not collect, try, think, be, refuse, not look · **To what, where:** sheep, youth, punishment · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Crimson Fairy Book, part 26. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (young man, youth, this, laziness), 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:pg2435:2273`): 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:pg2435:26:76
# text = The young man could not collect them, try as he would, and he thought to himself that this was the punishment for his laziness in refusing to look after his father’s one cow.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	collect	collect	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	obj	_	_
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	advcl	_	_
10	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
17	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	16	obl	_	_
19	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	23	mark	_	_
20	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	23	nsubj	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	23	cop	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	punishment	punishment	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	ccomp	_	_
24	for	for	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
25	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	laziness	laziness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	nmod	_	_
27	in	in	SCONJ	IN	_	28	mark	_	_
28	refusing	refuse	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	26	acl	_	_
29	to	to	PART	TO	_	30	mark	_	_
30	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	28	xcomp	_	_
31	after	after	ADP	IN	_	36	case	_	_
32	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	33	nmod:poss	_	_
33	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	36	nmod:poss	_	_
34	’s	's	PART	POS	_	33	case	_	_
35	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	36	nummod	_	_
36	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	30	obl	_	_
37	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **collect** | could | the young man | sheep |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |
| 2 | **try** | infinitive | the young man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | youth |  | youth |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is a** | past | this | the punishment |  |  |  | for youth's laziness | tree rules |
| 5 | **refuse** | gerund | youth's laziness *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 6 | **not** **look** | to-infinitive | youth's laziness *not said here* |  |  |  | after youth's father's one cow |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

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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:** «The Crimson Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 2435 (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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