---
title: “Prithee,” quoth the giant, “what heavy news can come to me? — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Prithee,” quoth the giant, “what heavy news can come to me? A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack the Giant-killer, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Jack the Giant-killer, sentence 53

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“Prithee,” quoth the giant, “what heavy news can come to me?

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**What happens:** quoth, come · **To what, where:** Prithee, Jack

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Jack the Giant-killer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg7439:23:53
# text = “Prithee,” quoth the giant, “what heavy news can come to me?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Prithee	prithee	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	quoth	quoth	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	giant	giant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	14	nsubj	_	_
11	heavy	heavy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
13	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **quoth** | present |  | Prithee |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **come** *in a quote* | can |  |  | Jack |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to i=Initial\_Location |

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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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