---
title: But Helga only told them that they should see for themselves on the… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But Helga only told them that they should see for themselves on the third day, when they would come to her wedding. Who acts: Helga, father. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 14, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/14/30/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Brown Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/) / [The Brown Fairy Book, part 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/14/) / 30

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 14, sentence 30

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But Helga only told them that they should see for themselves on the third day, when they would come to her wedding.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Helga, father · **What happens:** tell, see, come, wed · **To what, where:** father, wedding · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Helga, father), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg3282:14:30
# text = But Helga only told them that they should see for themselves on the third day, when they would come to her wedding.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	Helga	Helga	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	9	obl	_	_
12	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	third	third	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	15	amod	_	_
15	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	20	advmod	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	conj	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	wedding	wedding	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | Helga |  | father |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **see** | should | father |  |  |  | day | for father | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **come** | would | father |  |  | Helga's wedding |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to wedding=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **wed** |  | Helga |  |  |  |  |  | nom wedding «event transitive»: poss=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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3282 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/14/29/)
- next →: [sentence 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/14/31/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/14/)