---
title: He ought to be ashamed of himself, when there was scarcely a handful… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: He ought to be ashamed of himself, when there was scarcely a handful of meal in the house, to have spent the money on a useless brute like that. Who acts: Martin, handful. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Ring, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every claus
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg640/33/20/)

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Magic Ring, sentence 20

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He ought to be ashamed of himself, when there was scarcely a handful of meal in the house, to have spent the money on a useless brute like that.

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**Who acts:** Martin, handful · **What happens:** be, spend · **To what, where:** money, useless brute

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Magic Ring. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Martin, handful), 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:pg640:33:20
# text = He ought to be ashamed of himself, when there was scarcely a handful of meal in the house, to have spent the money on a useless brute like that.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
2	ought	ought	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	cop	_	_
5	ashamed	ashamed	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
10	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	11	expl	_	_
11	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
12	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	handful	handful	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	meal	meal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	to	to	PART	TO	_	23	mark	_	_
22	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	aux	_	_
23	spent	spend	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	conj	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	money	money	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	_
26	on	on	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
27	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	29	det	_	_
28	useless	useless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	29	amod	_	_
29	brute	brute	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
30	like	like	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	_
31	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	29	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | ought | Martin |  |  |  |  | of Martin; ashamed *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** | past | a handful of meal in the house |  |  | there |  | scarcely *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **spend** | to-infinitive · perfect | Martin *not said here* | the money |  |  |  | on a useless brute like that *goal* | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent money=Asset on brute=Goal |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 640 (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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