---
title: My man is an ogre and there's nothing he likes better than boys broi… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: My man is an ogre and there's nothing he likes better than boys broiled on toast. Who acts: man, nothing. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack and the Beanstalk, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Jack and the Beanstalk, sentence 52

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My man is an ogre and there's nothing he likes better than boys broiled on toast.

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**Who acts:** man, nothing · **What happens:** be, like, broil · **To what, where:** ogre, boys

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack and the Beanstalk. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, nothing), 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:pg7439:16:52
# text = My man is an ogre and there's nothing he likes better than boys broiled on toast.
1	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	ogre	ogre	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	8	expl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	's	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
9	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	8	nsubj	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	likes	like	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	11	xcomp	_	_
13	than	than	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	_
15	broiled	broil	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	toast	toast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | My man | a ogre |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** | present | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **like** | present | man |  |  |  |  | good *property* | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Pivot |
| 4 | **broil** | participle |  | boys *not said here* |  |  |  | on toast | vn cooking-45.3 «NP V PP.result PP.instrument»: agent=Patient on toast=Instrument |

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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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