---
title: I have never milked a cow before, but I have good strong fingers.’ — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: I have never milked a cow before, but I have good strong fingers.’ Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 2, sentence 30

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I have never milked a cow before, but I have good strong fingers.’

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** not milk, have · **To what, where:** cow, good strong fingers

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg641:10:30
# text = I have never milked a cow before, but I have good strong fingers.’
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	milked	milk	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	before	before	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
12	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	fingers	finger	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **milk** | present · perfect | I | a cow |  |  |  | before *property* | vn cheat-10.6.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cow=Source |
| 2 | **have** | present | I | good strong fingers |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent finger=Patient |

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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 Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (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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