---
title: They were wooden spoons; if they had been silver ones, the naughty o… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They were wooden spoons; if they had been silver ones, the naughty old Woman would have put them in her pocket. Who acts: Bears, silver ones. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story of the Three Bears, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Story of the Three Bears, sentence 31

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They were wooden spoons; if they had been silver ones, the naughty old Woman would have put them in her pocket.

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**Who acts:** Bears, silver ones · **What happens:** be, put · **To what, where:** wooden spoons, silver ones, naughty old Woman, pocket

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story of the Three Bears. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Bears, silver ones), 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:pg7439:21:31
# text = They were wooden spoons; if they had been silver ones, the naughty old Woman would have put them in her pocket.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	wooden	wooden	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	spoons	spoon	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
6	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
8	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
9	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	11	cop	_	_
10	silver	silver	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	ones	one	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
14	naughty	naughty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
15	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	Woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	nsubj:pass	_	_
17	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	19	aux	_	_
18	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	aux	_	_
19	put	put	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	11	acl	_	_
20	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	obj	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	pocket	pocket	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | Bears *= bear* | wooden spoons and silver ones |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is a** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect | Bears *= bear* | silver ones |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **put** | would · perfect · passive | silver ones *not said here* | the naughty old Woman |  | Woman's pocket |  |  | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V NP PP.goal»: subject=Asset they=Goal |

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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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