---
title: “Oh! what a lovely ball!” cried she, and tried to catch it in her pa… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Oh! what a lovely ball!” cried she, and tried to catch it in her pail; but the ball always kept bobbing just out of her reach. Who acts: lovely ball, ball. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29, 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/pg3282/29/36/)

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29, sentence 36

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Oh! what a lovely ball!” cried she, and tried to catch it in her pail; but the ball always kept bobbing just out of her reach.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** lovely ball, ball · **What happens:** cry, try, catch, keep, bob · **To what, where:** river, ball, pail, reach

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 29. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (lovely ball, ball), 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:pg3282:29:36
# text = “Oh! what a lovely ball!” cried she, and tried to catch it in her pail; but the ball always kept bobbing just out of her reach.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	lovely	lovely	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	cried	cry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	acl:relcl	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
15	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
16	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
17	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	_
18	in	in	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	20	nmod:poss	_	_
20	pail	pail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
22	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	ball	ball	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	nsubj	_	_
25	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	26	advmod	_	_
26	kept	keep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
27	bobbing	bob	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	26	xcomp	_	_
28	just	just	ADV	RB	_	32	advmod	_	_
29	out	out	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
30	of	of	ADP	IN	_	32	case	_	_
31	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	32	nmod:poss	_	_
32	reach	reach	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cry** *speech: express* | past | a lovely ball | river |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Topic |
| 2 | **try** | past | a lovely ball *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **catch** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | a lovely ball *not said here* | ball |  | river's pail |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 4 | **keep** | past | the ball |  |  |  |  | always *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **bob** | gerund | the ball *not said here* |  |  | river's reach |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme out reach=Location |

<!-- .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 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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