---
title: ‘My faith,’ said he, ‘it is sheer folly to waste more time hunting f… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘My faith,’ said he, ‘it is sheer folly to waste more time hunting for this bird. Who acts: faith, direction, more time. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Blackbird, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Blackbird, sentence 8

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
‘My faith,’ said he, ‘it is sheer folly to waste more time hunting for this bird.

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**Who acts:** faith, direction, more time · **What happens:** say, be, waste, hunt · **To what, where:** sheer folly · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Blackbird. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (faith, direction, more time), 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:pg7277:21:8
# text = ‘My faith,’ said he, ‘it is sheer folly to waste more time hunting for this bird.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	faith	faith	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
12	sheer	sheer	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	folly	folly	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	waste	waste	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	acl	_	_
16	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	17	amod	_	_
17	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	hunting	hunt	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	17	acl	_	_
19	for	for	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	21	det	_	_
21	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	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 | My faith |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present | direction | sheer folly |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **waste** | to-infinitive | My faith *not said here* |  |  |  | time |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **hunt** | gerund | more time *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for this bird | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V PP.theme PP.location»: agent=Agent for bird=Theme |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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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