---
title: “Alas! child,” she said, “I have nothing in the house, but I have sp… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Alas! child,” she said, “I have nothing in the house, but I have spun a little cotton and will go and sell it.” Who acts: child. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, sentence 49

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Alas! child,” she said, “I have nothing in the house, but I have spun a little cotton and will go and sell it.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** child · **What happens:** say, have, spin, go, sell · **To what, where:** nothing, house, little cotton, cotton · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (child), 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:pg503:12:49
# text = “Alas! child,” she said, “I have nothing in the house, but I have spun a little cotton and will go and sell it.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Alas	alas	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
4	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	12	obj	_	_
14	in	in	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
19	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
20	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
21	spun	spin	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	conj	_	_
22	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
23	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	24	amod	_	_
24	cotton	cotton	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obj	_	_
25	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
26	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	21	conj	_	_
28	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	29	cc	_	_
29	sell	sell	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	27	conj	_	_
30	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	29	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | child |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **have** *in a quote* | present | child | nothing |  | the house |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient |
| 3 | **spin** *in a quote* | present · perfect | child | a little cotton |  |  |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent cotton=Theme |
| 4 | **go** *in a quote* | future | child *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **sell** *in a quote* | infinitive | child *not said here* | cotton |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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 Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (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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