---
title: “Ay,” quoth Jack, “but pray tell me what is the meaning of your capt… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Ay,” quoth Jack, “but pray tell me what is the meaning of your captivity?” 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 92

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“Ay,” quoth Jack, “but pray tell me what is the meaning of your captivity?”

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**What happens:** quoth, pray, tell, be · **To what, where:** Jack, me, meaning · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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:pg7439:23:92
# text = “Ay,” quoth Jack, “but pray tell me what is the meaning of your captivity?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ay	ay	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	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	Jack	Jack	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	pray	pray	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
11	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	nsubj	_	_
14	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	meaning	meaning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	ccomp	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	captivity	captivity	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	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 |  | Jack |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **pray** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent i=Recipient |
| 4 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | the meaning |  |  |  | of your captivity | 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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