---
title: The poor little boy said: “It is the time that my mother, the hen-wi… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The poor little boy said: “It is the time that my mother, the hen-wife, takes up the eggs for the queen's breakfast.” Who acts: poor little boy, back, mother. 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 20

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The poor little boy said: “It is the time that my mother, the hen-wife, takes up the eggs for the queen's breakfast.”

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**Who acts:** poor little boy, back, mother · **What happens:** say, be, take up · **To what, where:** time · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (poor little boy, back, mother), 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:pg7439:12:20
# text = The poor little boy said: “It is the time that my mother, the hen-wife, takes up the eggs for the queen's breakfast.”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	5	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	ccomp	_	_
12	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	21	obj	_	_
13	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
17	hen	hen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	appos	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
21	takes	take	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	acl:relcl	_	_
22	up	up	ADP	RP	_	21	compound:prt	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	24	det	_	_
24	eggs	egg	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obj	_	_
25	for	for	ADP	IN	_	29	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	queen	queen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	's	's	PART	POS	_	27	case	_	_
29	breakfast	breakfast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the poor little boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | back | the time |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **take up** *in a quote* | present | my mother | the time |  |  |  | for the queen's breakfast | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument that=Theme egg=Destination |

<!-- .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:** «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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