---
title: I promised to give the giant who carried me over the river on his ba… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: I promised to give the giant who carried me over the river on his back, Nix Nought Nothing.” Who acts: I, giant. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Nix Nought Nothing, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Nix Nought Nothing, sentence 14

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I promised to give the giant who carried me over the river on his back, Nix Nought Nothing.”

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**Who acts:** I, giant · **What happens:** promise, give, carry · **To what, where:** giant, me, river

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Nix Nought Nothing. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, giant), 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:pg7439:12:14
# text = I promised to give the giant who carried me over the river on his back, Nix Nought Nothing.”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	promised	promise	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	giant	giant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
8	carried	carry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
9	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	over	over	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
13	on	on	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	Nix	Nix	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	18	compound	_	_
18	Nought	nought	PRON	NN	PronType=Neg	19	compound	_	_
19	Nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **promise** *speech: promise* | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **give** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | the giant |  |  |  | Nothing *obl* | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent giant=Theme |
| 3 | **carry** | past | the giant | me |  | the river |  | on Nix's back | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent i=Theme |

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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:** «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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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