---
title: ‘But I can’t do anything,’ he said, ‘except carry a bundle, and I sh… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘But I can’t do anything,’ he said, ‘except carry a bundle, and I shan’t earn much by that.’ Who acts: I, Demon. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 30, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/30/39/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Pink Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/) / [The Pink Fairy Book, part 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/30/) / 39

# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 30, sentence 39

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘But I can’t do anything,’ he said, ‘except carry a bundle, and I shan’t earn much by that.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, Demon · **What happens:** not do, say, carry, not earn · **To what, where:** anything, bundle · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 30. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, Demon), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg5615:30:39
# text = ‘But I can’t do anything,’ he said, ‘except carry a bundle, and I shan’t earn much by that.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
7	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	except	except	ADP	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
15	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	bundle	bundle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
20	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
21	sha	sha	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	23	advmod	_	_
23	earn	earn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	conj	_	_
24	much	much	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
25	by	by	ADP	IN	_	26	case	_	_
26	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	23	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	’	'	PUNCT	NFP	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **do** | can | I | anything |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Eventuality |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Demon |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **carry** | infinitive |  | a bundle |  |  |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bundle=Theme |
| 4 | **not** **earn** |  | I |  |  |  |  | by that | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 38](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/30/38/)
- next →: [sentence 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/30/40/)
- ↑ back to [The Pink Fairy Book, part 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/30/)