---
title: Well, he huffed, and he puffed, and he huffed and he puffed, and he… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Well, he huffed, and he puffed, and he huffed and he puffed, and he puffed and huffed; but he could _not_ get the house down. Who acts: first. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story of the Three Little Pigs, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Story of the Three Little Pigs, sentence 28

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Well, he huffed, and he puffed, and he huffed and he puffed, and he puffed and huffed; but he could \_not\_ get the house down.

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**Who acts:** first · **What happens:** huff, puff, \_, not get down · **To what, where:** house

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story of the Three Little Pigs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (first), 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:pg7439:17:28
# text = Well, he huffed, and he puffed, and he huffed and he puffed, and he puffed and huffed; but he could _not_ get the house down.
1	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	huffed	huff	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	puffed	puff	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	huffed	huff	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	puffed	puff	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	puffed	puff	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	parataxis	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	huffed	huff	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	26	punct	_	_
23	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	26	cc	_	_
24	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	26	nsubj	_	_
25	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	26	aux	_	_
26	_	_	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	29	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	_	_	PART	TO	_	29	mark	_	_
29	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	26	advcl	_	_
30	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	31	det	_	_
31	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	29	obj	_	_
32	down	down	ADP	RP	_	29	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
33	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **huff** | past | first |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **puff** | past | first |  |  |  |  |  | vn substance\_emission-43.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Source |
| 3 | **huff** | past | first |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **puff** | past | first |  |  |  |  |  | vn substance\_emission-43.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Source |
| 5 | **puff** | past | first |  |  |  |  |  | vn substance\_emission-43.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Source |
| 6 | **huff** | participle | first *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 7 | **\_** | could | first |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 8 | **not** **get down** | infinitive | first *not said here* | the house |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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