---
title: “I want to know why other people have all the luck, and only misfort… — The Brown Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “I want to know why other people have all the luck, and only misfortunes happen to me!” Who acts: voice, other people, misfortunes. A sentence of «The Brown Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brown Fairy Book, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Brown Fairy Book, The Brown Fairy Book, part 9, sentence 20

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“I want to know why other people have all the luck, and only misfortunes happen to me!”

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**Who acts:** voice, other people, misfortunes · **What happens:** want, know, have, happen · **To what, where:** luck, voice · **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 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (voice, other people, misfortunes), 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:pg3282:9:20
# text = “I want to know why other people have all the luck, and only misfortunes happen to me!”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	want	want	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
7	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	ccomp	_	_
10	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	12	det:predet	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	luck	luck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
15	only	only	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	misfortunes	misfortune	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nsubj	_	_
17	happen	happen	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **want** *in a quote* | present | a voice *= voice* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **know** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | a voice *= voice* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **have** *in a quote* | present | other people | all luck |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent luck=Patient |
| 4 | **happen** *in a quote* | present | misfortunes |  | a voice *= voice* |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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