---
title: ‘Why!’ said the brothers, ‘this is pure mud, straight from the ditch.’ — The Yellow Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Why!’ said the brothers, ‘this is pure mud, straight from the ditch.’ Who acts: this. 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 133

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‘Why!’ said the brothers, ‘this is pure mud, straight from the ditch.’

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**Who acts:** this · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** brothers, pure mud · **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 (this), 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:pg640:50:133
# text = ‘Why!’ said the brothers, ‘this is pure mud, straight from the ditch.’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	brothers	brother	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	pure	pure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	mud	mud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
15	straight	straight	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	ditch	ditch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	’	'	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 |  | the brothers |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent brother=Topic |
| 2 | **is a** | present | this | pure mud and the ditch |  |  |  |  | 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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