---
title: So the first head asked: “A thing without an end, what's that?” — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: So the first head asked: “A thing without an end, what's that?” Who acts: first head. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Red Ettin, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The Red Ettin, sentence 26

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So the first head asked: “A thing without an end, what's that?”

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**Who acts:** first head · **What happens:** ask, be · **To what, where:** that · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Red Ettin. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (first head), 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:pg7439:26:26
# text = So the first head asked: “A thing without an end, what's that?”
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	4	amod	_	_
4	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	5	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	ccomp	_	_
10	without	without	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	end	end	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	's	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
16	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the first head |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | the first head *not said here* | that |  |  |  |  | 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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