---
title: It's my old man,” said the ogre's wife, “what on earth shall I do? — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It's my old man,” said the ogre's wife, “what on earth shall I do? Who acts: house, old man, I. 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 61

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It's my old man,” said the ogre's wife, “what on earth shall I do?

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**Who acts:** house, old man, I · **What happens:** be, say, do · **To what, where:** old man, wife, earth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (house, old man, I), 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:pg7439:16:61
# text = It's my old man,” said the ogre's wife, “what on earth shall I do?
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
3	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
4	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	ogre	ogre	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	's	's	PART	POS	_	10	case	_	_
12	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	parataxis	_	_
16	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
18	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
19	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | house | my old man |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | my old man | the ogre's wife |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** | shall | I |  |  | earth |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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