---
title: “What is the good of working like this if I never am a penny the ric… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “What is the good of working like this if I never am a penny the richer at the end? Who acts: lost heart. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, 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/pg3282/21/69/)

<!-- 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 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/21/) / 69

# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21, sentence 69

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“What is the good of working like this if I never am a penny the richer at the end?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** lost heart · **What happens:** be, work · **To what, where:** penny, end

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 21. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lost heart), 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:pg3282:21:69
# text = “What is the good of working like this if I never am a penny the richer at the end?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	5	obl	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
7	working	work	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
8	like	like	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	obl	_	_
10	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
12	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	penny	penny	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	advcl	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	richer	rich	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	15	conj	_	_
18	at	at	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  | good *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **work** *in a quote* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | like this | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present | lost heart *= heart* | a penny |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **be** *in a quote* |  | lost heart *= heart* *not said here* |  |  |  | at the end |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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 68](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/21/68/)
- next →: [sentence 70](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/21/70/)
- ↑ back to [The Brown Fairy Book, part 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg3282/21/)