---
title: ‘I couldn’t help it,’ she said; ‘I had more than twenty times furthe… — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I couldn’t help it,’ she said; ‘I had more than twenty times further to come than any bird that has come here to-day.’ Who acts: I, noise, bird. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Mountains, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Blue Mountains, sentence 131

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘I couldn’t help it,’ she said; ‘I had more than twenty times further to come than any bird that has come here to-day.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, noise, bird · **What happens:** not help, say, have, come · **To what, where:** sky · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Blue Mountains. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, noise, bird), 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:pg640:45:131
# text = ‘I couldn’t help it,’ she said; ‘I had more than twenty times further to come than any bird that has come here to-day.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
9	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
12	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	ccomp	_	_
15	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp|ExtPos=ADV	17	advmod	_	_
16	than	than	ADP	IN	_	15	fixed	_	_
17	twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nummod	_	_
18	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl:unmarked	_	_
19	further	further	ADV	RB	_	21	advmod	_	_
20	to	to	PART	TO	_	21	mark	_	_
21	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
22	than	than	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
23	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	24	det	_	_
24	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	_
25	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	27	nsubj	_	_
26	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	27	aux	_	_
27	come	come	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	24	acl:relcl	_	_
28	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	27	advmod	_	_
29	to	to	ADP	IN	_	31	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	29	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
32	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **help** | could | I | sky |  |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Beneficiary |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | noise |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **have** | past | I |  |  |  | time |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **come** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  | than any bird; further *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **come** | present · perfect | any bird |  |  | here | day |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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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