---
title: He spoke but little, however, and all that he said about himself was… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He spoke but little, however, and all that he said about himself was that his name was Peter. Who acts: man, name. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 33, 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/pg5615/33/74/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 33, sentence 74

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He spoke but little, however, and all that he said about himself was that his name was Peter.

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**Who acts:** man, name · **What happens:** speak, say, be, name · **To what, where:** Peter · **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 33. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, name), 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:pg5615:33:74
# text = He spoke but little, however, and all that he said about himself was that his name was Peter.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	however	however	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	12	det:predet	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
13	about	about	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	20	obl	_	_
15	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
16	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	name	name	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
20	Peter	Peter	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | man |  |  |  |  | however *property* | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is a** | past | man's name | Peter |  |  |  | about man | tree rules |
| 4 | **name** |  | man |  |  |  |  |  | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=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 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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