---
title: He had a fancy to try to watch the seven foals himself, he said. — The Red Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He had a fancy to try to watch the seven foals himself, he said. Who acts: Cinderlad, fancy, seven. A sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Seven Foals, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Red Fairy Book, The Seven Foals, sentence 42

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He had a fancy to try to watch the seven foals himself, he said.

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**Who acts:** Cinderlad, fancy, seven · **What happens:** have, try, watch, foal, say · **To what, where:** fancy, Cinderlad · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Red Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Seven Foals. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Cinderlad, fancy, seven), 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:pg540:49:42
# text = He had a fancy to try to watch the seven foals himself, he said.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	fancy	fancy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	try	try	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	watch	watch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	seven	seven	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nsubj	_	_
11	foals	foal	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
12	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | Cinderlad | a fancy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **try** | to-infinitive | a fancy *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **watch** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | a fancy *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **foal** | present | the seven | Cinderlad |  |  |  |  | vn calve-28.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent himself=Patient |
| 5 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Cinderlad |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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