---
title: _It scarce may be believed, This tale of Donkey-skin; But laughing c… — The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault · tree and pragmatics
description: _It scarce may be believed, This tale of Donkey-skin; But laughing children in the home; Yea, mothers, and grandmothers too, Are little moved by facts! Who acts: facts, Donkey skin. A sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Towards Her"], with its dependency tree and t
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29021/15/206/)

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# The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, Towards Her"\], sentence 206

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\_It scarce may be believed, This tale of Donkey-skin; But laughing children in the home; Yea, mothers, and grandmothers too, Are little moved by facts!

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**Who acts:** facts, Donkey skin · **What happens:** believe, laugh, move, tell · **To what, where:** love, children, home, mothers · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Towards Her"\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (facts, Donkey skin), 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:pg29021:15:206
# text = _It scarce may be believed, This tale of Donkey-skin; But laughing children in the home; Yea, mothers, and grandmothers too, Are little moved by facts!
1	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	scarce	scarce	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	nsubj:pass	_	_
4	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux:pass	_	_
6	believed	believe	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	This	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	det	_	_
9	tale	tale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	Donkey	Donkey	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	skin	skin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
15	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	advcl	_	_
17	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	home	home	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	24	punct	_	_
22	Yea	yea	INTJ	UH	_	24	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
24	mothers	mother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	27	punct	_	_
26	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
27	grandmothers	grandmother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	24	conj	_	_
28	too	too	ADV	RB	_	27	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	32	punct	_	_
30	Are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	32	aux:pass	_	_
31	little	little	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	32	advmod	_	_
32	moved	move	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	24	acl	_	_
33	by	by	ADP	IN	_	34	case	_	_
34	facts	fact	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	32	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
35	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **believe** | may · passive |  | love |  |  |  | this tale of Donkey skin *obl*; mothers and grandmothers *obl* | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Stimulus |
| 2 | **laugh** | gerund |  | children |  | the home |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Theme |
| 3 | **move** | present · passive | facts | mothers and grandmothers *not said here* |  |  |  | little *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **tell** |  | Donkey skin |  |  |  |  |  | nom tale «communication intransitive»: of=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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 Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault» by Charles Perrault, Project Gutenberg book 29021 (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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