---
title: ‘Blockhead!’ said they, ‘that is an old wooden shoe without the top! — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Blockhead!’ said they, ‘that is an old wooden shoe without the top! Who acts: Blockhead, that. A sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Yellow Fairy Book, The Steadfast Tin-soldier, sentence 126

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‘Blockhead!’ said they, ‘that is an old wooden shoe without the top!

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**Who acts:** Blockhead, that · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** old wooden shoe · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Yellow Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Steadfast Tin-soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Blockhead, that), 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:pg640:50:126
# text = ‘Blockhead!’ said they, ‘that is an old wooden shoe without the top!
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Blockhead	blockhead	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
8	‘	‘	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	nsubj	_	_
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
11	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	wooden	wooden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	shoe	shoe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	ccomp	_	_
15	without	without	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Blockhead |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present | that | a old wooden shoe |  |  |  | without the top | 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 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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