---
title: Generally speaking, it has been my ambition to write as a good old n… — English Fairy Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Generally speaking, it has been my ambition to write as a good old nurse will speak when she tells Fairy Tales. Who acts: propriety, good old nurse, nurse. 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 44

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Generally speaking, it has been my ambition to write as a good old nurse will speak when she tells Fairy Tales.

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**Who acts:** propriety, good old nurse, nurse · **What happens:** speak, be, write, tell · **To what, where:** ambition, Fairy Tales · **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 (propriety, good old nurse, nurse), 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:pg7439:3:44
# text = Generally speaking, it has been my ambition to write as a good old nurse will speak when she tells Fairy Tales.
1	Generally	generally	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	speaking	speak	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
5	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
6	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	8	cop	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	ambition	ambition	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	write	write	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	acl	_	_
11	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	nurse	nurse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
16	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	advcl	_	_
18	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	20	mark	_	_
19	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	tells	tell	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	17	advcl	_	_
21	Fairy	fairy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	Tales	tale	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | gerund | propriety *not said here* |  |  |  |  | generally *property* | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present · perfect | propriety | my ambition |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **write** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **speak** *speech: other* | future | a good old nurse |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 5 | **tell** *speech: assert* | present | nurse | Fairy Tales |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent tale=Recipient |

<!-- .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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