---
title: The clerk drank the ale himself, and gave the calf milk, which he th… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: The clerk drank the ale himself, and gave the calf milk, which he thought would be better for it. Who acts: clerk, calf milk. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 14, 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/pg5615/14/22/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 14, sentence 22

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The clerk drank the ale himself, and gave the calf milk, which he thought would be better for it.

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**Who acts:** clerk, calf milk · **What happens:** drink, give, think, be · **To what, where:** ale

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (clerk, calf milk), 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:pg5615:14:22
# text = The clerk drank the ale himself, and gave the calf milk, which he thought would be better for it.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	clerk	clerk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	drank	drink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	ale	ale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Emp|Reflex=Yes	5	nmod:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	calf	calf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	acl:relcl	_	_
17	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	cop	_	_
19	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	9	ccomp	_	_
20	for	for	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
21	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **drink** | past | the clerk | the ale  man |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ale=Patient |
| 2 | **give** | past | the clerk *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn break\_down-45.8 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the calf milk |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | would | the calf milk |  |  |  |  | for ale; good *property* | tree rules |

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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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