---
title: And then the third head asked: “The dead carrying the living; riddle… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: And then the third head asked: “The dead carrying the living; riddle me that?” Who acts: third 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 30

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And then the third head asked: “The dead carrying the living; riddle me that?”

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**Who acts:** third head · **What happens:** ask, carry, riddle · **To what, where:** living, third head · **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 (third 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:pg7439:26:30
# text = And then the third head asked: “The dead carrying the living; riddle me that?”
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	third	third	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	5	amod	_	_
5	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	ccomp	_	_
11	carrying	carry	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	living	living	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
15	riddle	riddle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
16	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	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 third head |  |  |  | then |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **carry** *in a quote* | gerund | the third head *not said here* | the living |  |  |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent living=Theme |
| 3 | **riddle** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | the third head *= head* |  |  |  |  | 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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