---
title: The sayings of my father never failed. — Indian Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The sayings of my father never failed. Who acts: sayings. A sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Indian Fairy Tales, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 8, sentence 5

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The sayings of my father never failed.

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**Who acts:** sayings · **What happens:** not fail, say · **To what, where:** father · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Demon With Matted Hair " 196, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sayings), 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:pg7128:14:5
# text = The sayings of my father never failed.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	sayings	saying	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
6	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	failed	fail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **fail** | past | the sayings of my father |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **say** |  |  | my father |  |  |  |  | nom saying «communication transitive»: of=patient |

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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:** «Indian Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7128 (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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