---
title: They all went abroad, but Little Thumb never told his brothers one s… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: They all went abroad, but Little Thumb never told his brothers one syllable of what he knew. Who acts: pockets, Little Thumb, thumb. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Little Thumb, sentence 16

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They all went abroad, but Little Thumb never told his brothers one syllable of what he knew.

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**Who acts:** pockets, Little Thumb, thumb · **What happens:** go, not tell, know · **To what, where:** brothers · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Little Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (pockets, Little Thumb, thumb), 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:pg503:33:16
# text = They all went abroad, but Little Thumb never told his brothers one syllable of what he knew.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	3	advmod	_	_
3	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	abroad	abroad	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
7	Little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	Thumb	Thumb	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	iobj	_	_
13	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
14	syllable	syllable	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	ccomp	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	14	nmod	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | pockets *= pocket* |  |  |  |  | abroad *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | past | Little Thumb |  | thumb's brothers |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent brother=Recipient |
| 3 | **know** | past | thumb |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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