---
title: He would not be their priest, he said; he had too little learning fo… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He would not be their priest, he said; he had too little learning for that. Who acts: Hans. 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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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 13, sentence 42

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He would not be their priest, he said; he had too little learning for that.

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**Who acts:** Hans · **What happens:** not be, say, have · **To what, where:** priest, little learning · **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 (Hans), 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:pg5615:13:42
# text = He would not be their priest, he said; he had too little learning for that.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	cop	_	_
5	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	priest	priest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	ccomp	_	_
13	too	too	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	learning	learning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** | would | Hans | men's priest |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Hans |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **have** | past | Hans | little learning |  |  |  | for that | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent learning=Patient |

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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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