---
title: He therefore asked them why they were so melancholy, and learned tha… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He therefore asked them why they were so melancholy, and learned that they were miserable because they had no children. Who acts: Merlin, wife. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The History of Tom Thumb, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, The History of Tom Thumb, sentence 5

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He therefore asked them why they were so melancholy, and learned that they were miserable because they had no children.

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**Who acts:** Merlin, wife · **What happens:** ask, be, learn, have · **To what, where:** wife, melancholy, children · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The History of Tom Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Merlin, wife), 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:pg7439:28:5
# text = He therefore asked them why they were so melancholy, and learned that they were miserable because they had no children.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	therefore	therefore	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obj	_	_
5	why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
7	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
8	so	so	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	melancholy	melancholy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	learned	learn	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
13	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
14	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
16	miserable	miserable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	ccomp	_	_
17	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
18	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	19	nsubj	_	_
19	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
20	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	21	det	_	_
21	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	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 | Merlin |  | wife |  |  | therefore *property* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent they=Recipient |
| 2 | **is a** | past | wife | melancholy |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **learn** | past | Merlin *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn learn-14-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **is** | past | wife |  |  |  |  | miserable *property* | tree rules |
| 5 | **have** | past | wife | no children |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Patient |

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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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