---
title: ‘Eh, what!’ said the old fellow; ‘ME stand on my head, what an idea!’ — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Eh, what!’ said the old fellow; ‘ME stand on my head, what an idea!’ Who acts: Eh, ME, head. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, sentence 128

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‘Eh, what!’ said the old fellow; ‘ME stand on my head, what an idea!’

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**Who acts:** Eh, ME, head · **What happens:** say, stand, idea · **To what, where:** old fellow, head · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Eh, ME, head), 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:pg641:24:128
# text = ‘Eh, what!’ said the old fellow; ‘ME stand on my head, what an idea!’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Eh	Eh	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
4	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	2	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
7	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	fellow	fellow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
12	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	ME	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	stand	stand	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
19	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	21	nsubj	_	_
20	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	idea	idea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	14	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 | Eh | the old fellow |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **stand** | present | ME |  |  | my head and a idea |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on head=Location |
| 3 | **idea** |  | my head and a idea |  |  |  |  |  | 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 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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