---
title: “That won’t taste amiss,” he said; “but I’ll finish that waistcoat f… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “That won’t taste amiss,” he said; “but I’ll finish that waistcoat first before I take a bite.” Who acts: That, tailor. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brave Little Tailor, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, The Brave Little Tailor, sentence 9

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“That won’t taste amiss,” he said; “but I’ll finish that waistcoat first before I take a bite.”

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**Who acts:** That, tailor · **What happens:** not taste, say, finish, take · **To what, where:** waistcoat, bite · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Brave Little Tailor. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (That, tailor), 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:pg503:42:9
# text = “That won’t taste amiss,” he said; “but I’ll finish that waistcoat first before I take a bite.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	That	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
3	wo	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	taste	taste	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
6	amiss	amiss	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’ll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	finish	finish	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
17	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	18	det	_	_
18	waistcoat	waistcoat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	16	advmod	_	_
20	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
22	take	take	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	advcl	_	_
23	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	bite	bite	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **taste** *in a quote* | future | That |  |  |  |  | amiss *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | tailor |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **finish** *in a quote* | future | tailor | that waistcoat |  |  |  | first *property* | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector waistcoat=Eventuality |
| 4 | **take** *in a quote* | present | tailor | a bite |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bite=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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