---
title: ‘Oh,’ said they, ‘that was only a joke; it didn’t mean anything.’ — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Oh,’ said they, ‘that was only a joke; it didn’t mean anything.’ Who acts: men, that, bargain. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, 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/pg5615/13/15/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, sentence 15

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‘Oh,’ said they, ‘that was only a joke; it didn’t mean anything.’

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**Who acts:** men, that, bargain · **What happens:** say, be, not mean · **To what, where:** joke, anything · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men, that, bargain), 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:pg5615:13:15
# text = ‘Oh,’ said they, ‘that was only a joke; it didn’t mean anything.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	‘	‘	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	only	only	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	joke	joke	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
16	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	18	advmod	_	_
18	mean	mean	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
19	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | men *= man* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | past | that | a joke |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **not** **mean** | past · do-support | bargain | anything |  |  |  |  | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Topic |

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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 Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (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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