---
title: ‘Come and help me,’ said the King of the Ants; ‘the beetles are too… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘Come and help me,’ said the King of the Ants; ‘the beetles are too big for us. Who acts: beetles. 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 23

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‘Come and help me,’ said the King of the Ants; ‘the beetles are too big for us.

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**Who acts:** beetles · **What happens:** come, help, say, be · **To what, where:** me · **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 (beetles), 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:pg641:24:23
# text = ‘Come and help me,’ said the King of the Ants; ‘the beetles are too big for us.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	help	help	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	King	King	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	ccomp	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	Ants	ant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	20	punct	_	_
15	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	beetles	beetle	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	nsubj	_	_
18	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	too	too	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	parataxis	_	_
21	for	for	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **help** | infinitive |  |  | me |  |  |  | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Beneficiary |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **is** | present | the beetles |  |  |  |  | for us; big *property* | 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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