---
title: 'I need someone to herd my three dun cows, which are hornless,' said… — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: 'I need someone to herd my three dun cows, which are hornless,' said the old man. ' Who acts: I, three dun cows, old man. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 30, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3027/30/5/)

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 30, sentence 5

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'I need someone to herd my three dun cows, which are hornless,' said the old man. '

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**Who acts:** I, three dun cows, old man · **What happens:** need, herd, be, say · **To what, where:** someone, three dun cows · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 30. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, three dun cows, old man), 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:pg3027:30:5
# text = 'I need someone to herd my three dun cows, which are hornless,' said the old man. '
1	'	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	need	need	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	ccomp	_	_
4	someone	someone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	3	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	herd	herd	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
8	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	nummod	_	_
9	dun	dun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	cows	cow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
13	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	hornless	hornless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
17	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	_
22	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **need** | present | I | someone |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot someone=Theme |
| 2 | **herd** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | my three dun cows |  |  |  |  | vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent cow=Patient |
| 3 | **is** | present | my three dun cows |  |  |  |  | hornless *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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 Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (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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