---
title: “Why it is hardly worth calling a tail!” said he. — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why it is hardly worth calling a tail!” said he. Who acts: tail, bear. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 18, 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/pg3282/18/26/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 18, sentence 26

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“Why it is hardly worth calling a tail!” said he.

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**Who acts:** tail, bear · **What happens:** be, call, say · **To what, where:** tail · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 18. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tail, bear), 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:pg3282:18:26
# text = “Why it is hardly worth calling a tail!” said he.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	worth	worth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	ccomp	_	_
7	calling	call	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	xcomp	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present | tail |  |  |  |  | hardly, worth *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **call** *in a quote* | gerund | tail *not said here* | a tail |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent tail=Recipient |
| 3 | **say** *speech: express* | past | bear |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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 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.

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