---
title: “Eh,” said the wife, “it's three poor lassies cold and hungry, and t… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Eh,” said the wife, “it's three poor lassies cold and hungry, and they will go away. Who acts: wife, knock, lassies. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Molly Whuppie, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, Molly Whuppie, sentence 13

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“Eh,” said the wife, “it's three poor lassies cold and hungry, and they will go away.

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**Who acts:** wife, knock, lassies · **What happens:** say, be, go away · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Molly Whuppie. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife, knock, lassies), 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:pg7439:25:13
# text = “Eh,” said the wife, “it's three poor lassies cold and hungry, and they will go away.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Eh	eh	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
12	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	14	nummod	_	_
13	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	lassies	lassie	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
15	cold	cold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	ccomp	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
20	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
23	away	away	ADV	RB	_	22	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the wife |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | knock |  |  |  |  | cold *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** *in a quote* |  | knock *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **go away** *in a quote* | future | lassies *= lassie* |  |  |  |  | away *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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