---
title: Mother says that they are just common scarlet-runners, and nothing e… — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: Mother says that they are just common scarlet-runners, and nothing else; but I may as well sow them.’ Who acts: Mother, beans, I. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jack Sells the Cow, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/15/12/)

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# The Red Fairy Book, Jack Sells the Cow, sentence 12

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Mother says that they are just common scarlet-runners, and nothing else; but I may as well sow them.’

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**Who acts:** Mother, beans, I · **What happens:** say, be, sow · **To what, where:** common scarlet runners, beans · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jack Sells the Cow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Mother, beans, I), 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:pg540:15:12
# text = Mother says that they are just common scarlet-runners, and nothing else; but I may as well sow them.’
1	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
5	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
6	just	just	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
7	common	common	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
8	scarlet	scarlet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	runners	runner	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	10	conj	_	_
14	else	else	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	21	punct	_	_
16	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
17	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	21	nsubj	_	_
18	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
19	as	as	ADV	RB	ExtPos=CCONJ	21	cc	_	_
20	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	19	fixed	_	_
21	sow	sow	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
22	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present | beans *= bean* | common scarlet runners |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **sow** | may | I | beans *= bean* |  |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent they=Theme |

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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 Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 540 (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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