---
title: “But I can’t help feeling sorry for the poor children,” added the hu… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “But I can’t help feeling sorry for the poor children,” added the husband. Who acts: husband. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Hansel and Grettel, sentence 9

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“But I can’t help feeling sorry for the poor children,” added the husband.

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**Who acts:** husband · **What happens:** not help, feel, add · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Hansel and Grettel. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (husband), 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:pg503:35:9
# text = “But I can’t help feeling sorry for the poor children,” added the husband.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	ccomp	_	_
7	feeling	feel	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	xcomp	_	_
8	sorry	sorry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	xcomp	_	_
9	for	for	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
15	added	add	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	husband	husband	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **help** *in a quote* | can | the husband *= husband* |  |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **feel** *not said to happen, in a quote* | gerund | the husband *= husband* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for the poor children; sorry *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 3 | **add** *speech: assert* | past | the husband |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

<!-- .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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