---
title: One cannot imagine a child saying, “Tell us a folk-tale, nurse,” or… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: One cannot imagine a child saying, “Tell us a folk-tale, nurse,” or “Another nursery tale, please, grandma.” Who acts: One, child. A sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, _to My Dear Little May_, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# English Fairy Tales, \_to My Dear Little May\_, sentence 16

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One cannot imagine a child saying, “Tell us a folk-tale, nurse,” or “Another nursery tale, please, grandma.”

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**Who acts:** One, child · **What happens:** not imagine, say, tell · **To what, where:** child, folk tale, us · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, \_to My Dear Little May\_. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (One, child), 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:pg7439:3:16
# text = One cannot imagine a child saying, “Tell us a folk-tale, nurse,” or “Another nursery tale, please, grandma.”
1	One	one	PRON	PRP	Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	imagine	imagine	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	saying	say	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	6	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	ccomp	_	_
11	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	iobj	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	folk	folk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	tale	tale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
17	nurse	nurse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
20	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
21	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	Another	another	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	24	det	_	_
23	nursery	nursery	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	compound	_	_
24	tale	tale	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
26	please	please	INTJ	UH	_	4	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
28	grandma	grandma	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	vocative	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
30	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **imagine** | can | One | a child or another nursery tale |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot child=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | a child or another nursery tale *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  | a folk tale and nurse | us |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent we=Recipient tale=Topic |

<!-- .note -->
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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