---
title: ‘I turn round because I have no eyes in the back of my neck,’ said H… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I turn round because I have no eyes in the back of my neck,’ said Hans. Who acts: I, Hans. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Violet Fairy Book, The Headless Dwarfs, sentence 70

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‘I turn round because I have no eyes in the back of my neck,’ said Hans.

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**Who acts:** I, Hans · **What happens:** turn round, have, say · **To what, where:** eyes, back · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, Hans), 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:pg641:33:70
# text = ‘I turn round because I have no eyes in the back of my neck,’ said Hans.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	turn	turn	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	18	ccomp	_	_
4	round	round	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
8	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	9	det	_	_
9	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	neck	neck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
18	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
19	Hans	Hans	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **turn round** | present | I |  |  |  |  | round *property* | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | present | I | no eyes |  | the back of my neck |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent eye=Patient |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Hans |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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