---
title: ‘I’m minding my pigs and donkeys; but what do you want?’ was the rep… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: ‘I’m minding my pigs and donkeys; but what do you want?’ was the reply. Who acts: I, you. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jack My Hedgehog, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Green Fairy Book, Jack My Hedgehog, sentence 38

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‘I’m minding my pigs and donkeys; but what do you want?’ was the reply.

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**Who acts:** I, you · **What happens:** be, mind, want · **To what, where:** pigs, reply

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This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jack My Hedgehog. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, you), 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:pg7277:48:38
# text = ‘I’m minding my pigs and donkeys; but what do you want?’ was the reply.
1	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’m	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	punct	_	_
4	minding	mind	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	xcomp	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	pigs	pig	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	donkeys	donkey	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
10	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	obj	_	_
12	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
13	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	’	'	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
17	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	reply	reply	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **mind** | gerund | I *not said here* | my pigs and donkeys |  |  |  |  | vn caring-75.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pig=Theme |
| 3 | **want** | present · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot what=Theme |
| 4 | **is a** | past |  | the reply |  |  |  |  | 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 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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