---
title: “Your gardeners do not understand their business: but what can you e… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Your gardeners do not understand their business: but what can you expect of men whose fathers were cobblers and carpenters? Who acts: gardeners, you, fathers. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Bronze Ring, sentence 4

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“Your gardeners do not understand their business: but what can you expect of men whose fathers were cobblers and carpenters?

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**Who acts:** gardeners, you, fathers · **What happens:** not understand, expect, be · **To what, where:** business, cobblers

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Bronze Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gardeners, you, fathers), 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:pg503:2:4
# text = “Your gardeners do not understand their business: but what can you expect of men whose fathers were cobblers and carpenters?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	gardeners	gardener	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
4	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	business	business	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	6	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	obj	_	_
12	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	expect	expect	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
17	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	fathers	father	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nsubj	_	_
19	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
20	cobblers	cobbler	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nmod	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	carpenters	carpenter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **understand** *in a quote* | present · do-support | Your gardeners | gardeners's business |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer business=Stimulus |
| 2 | **expect** *in a quote* | can | you |  |  |  |  | of men | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Theme |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | past | cobblers and carpenters's fathers | cobblers and carpenters |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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 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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