---
title: “It does not need many words to tell you how great a service you hav… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “It does not need many words to tell you how great a service you have done me. Who acts: owl, many words, you. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, sentence 61

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“It does not need many words to tell you how great a service you have done me.

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**Who acts:** owl, many words, you · **What happens:** not need, tell, do · **To what, where:** many words, great service, you, Charming · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (owl, many words, you), 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:pg503:28:61
# text = “It does not need many words to tell you how great a service you have done me.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	need	need	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	_
11	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	12	advmod	_	_
12	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	service	service	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	14	acl:relcl	_	_
18	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **need** *in a quote* | present · do-support | owl | many words |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | many words *not said here* | a great service | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient service=Topic |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | present · perfect | you | a great service *not said here* | Charming |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Eventuality |

<!-- .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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