---
title: My sheep at least feed themselves, but I should have to find food fo… — The Green Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: My sheep at least feed themselves, but I should have to find food for the dogs.’ Who acts: sheep, I. A sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dogs, 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/pg7277/56/10/)

<!-- 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 Green Fairy Book](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/) / [The Three Dogs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/56/) / 10

# The Green Fairy Book, The Three Dogs, sentence 10

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
My sheep at least feed themselves, but I should have to find food for the dogs.’

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sheep, I · **What happens:** feed, have, find · **To what, where:** sheep, least, food

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dogs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sheep, I), 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:pg7277:56:10
# text = My sheep at least feed themselves, but I should have to find food for the dogs.’
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	sheep	sheep	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
3	at	at	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	least	least	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	5	obl	_	_
5	feed	feed	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	dogs	dog	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	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 | **feed** | infinitive | My sheep | sheep |  | least |  |  | vn feeding-39.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent themselves=Recipient |
| 2 | **have** | should | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **find** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | food |  |  |  | for the dogs | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent food=Theme for dog=Beneficiary |

<!-- .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 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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/56/9/)
- next →: [sentence 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/56/11/)
- ↑ back to [The Three Dogs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/56/)