---
title: ‘What is the use of my telling you things that would only make you s… — The Violet Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘What is the use of my telling you things that would only make you sad too?’ Who acts: my, things. A sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mogarzea and His Son, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/23/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Violet Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/) / [Mogarzea and His Son](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/) / 23

# The Violet Fairy Book, Mogarzea and His Son, sentence 23

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘What is the use of my telling you things that would only make you sad too?’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** my, things · **What happens:** be, tell, make · **To what, where:** use, things, you · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Mogarzea and His Son. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (my, things), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**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:pg641:44:23
# text = ‘What is the use of my telling you things that would only make you sad too?’
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	use	use	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	telling	tell	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	8	iobj	_	_
10	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
11	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
12	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	only	only	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl:relcl	_	_
15	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	_
17	too	too	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present |  | the use |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | gerund | my | things | you |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient thing=Topic |
| 3 | **make** | would | things | you |  |  |  | sad *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset you=Product |

<!-- .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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/22/)
- next →: [sentence 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/24/)
- ↑ back to [Mogarzea and His Son](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/44/)