---
title: But did not the elders say, “He that does good like a mother!”’ — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: But did not the elders say, “He that does good like a mother!”’ Who acts: elders, part. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of a Gazelle, sentence 248

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But did not the elders say, “He that does good like a mother!”’

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**Who acts:** elders, part · **What happens:** do, not say, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (elders, part), 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:pg641:15:248
# text = But did not the elders say, “He that does good like a mother!”’
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	2	cc	_	_
2	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	elders	elder	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	obj	_	_
11	does	do	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	ccomp	_	_
13	like	like	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **say** *speech: express* | present | the elders |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | part |  |  |  |  | like a mother; good *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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 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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