---
title: There was no time to waste words; so the farmer mounted his horse an… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: There was no time to waste words; so the farmer mounted his horse and rode off after Jack Hannaford. Who acts: time, farmer. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack Hannaford, 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/pg7439/13/29/)

<!-- 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/) / [English Fairy Tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/) / [Jack Hannaford](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/13/) / 29

# English Fairy Tales, Jack Hannaford, sentence 29

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was no time to waste words; so the farmer mounted his horse and rode off after Jack Hannaford.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** time, farmer · **What happens:** be, waste, mount, ride off · **To what, where:** words, horse

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack Hannaford. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (time, farmer), 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:pg7439:13:29
# text = There was no time to waste words; so the farmer mounted his horse and rode off after Jack Hannaford.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	4	det	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	waste	waste	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl	_	_
7	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	so	so	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	farmer	farmer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
12	mounted	mount	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
13	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	horse	horse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	rode	ride	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	_
17	off	off	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	_
18	after	after	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	Jack	Jack	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	_
20	Hannaford	Hannaford	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | no time |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **waste** | to-infinitive | no time *not said here* | words |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Patient |
| 3 | **mount** | past | the farmer | Deary's horse |  |  |  |  | vn establish-55.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent horse=Patient |
| 4 | **ride off** | past | the farmer *not said here* |  |  |  | after Jack Hannaford |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .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:** «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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/13/28/)
- next →: [sentence 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/13/30/)
- ↑ back to [Jack Hannaford](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7439/13/)